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The Forbidden Forest
Time
,
my
grandfather
used
to
say
,
stood
still
in
that
glen
of
his
.
But
the
truth
of
the
saying
did
not
survive
his
death
,
and
the
first
daisies
had
scarcely
withered
on
his
grave
before
a
new
world
was
knocking
at
the
gate
.
That
was
thirty
years
ago
,
and
to
-
day
the
revolution
is
complete
.
The
parish
name
has
been
changed
;
the
white
box
of
a
kirk
which
served
the
glen
for
more
than
two
centuries
has
been
rebuilt
in
red
suburban
gothic
;
a
main
railway
line
now
runs
down
the
Aller
,
and
the
excellent
summer
service
brings
holiday
-
makers
from
a
hundred
miles
distant
:
houses
and
shops
have
clustered
under
the
Hill
of
Deer
;
there
may
be
found
a
well
-
reputed
boarding
school
for
youth
,
two
inns
-
-
both
of
them
reformed
-
-
a
garage
,
and
a
bank
agent
.
The
centre
of
importance
has
moved
from
the
old
village
to
the
new
town
by
the
station
,
and
even
the
old
village
is
no
more
a
clachan
of
thatched
roofs
straggling
by
a
burnside
.
Some
enemy
of
the
human
race
has
taught
the
burn
to
run
straight
like
a
sewer
,
and
has
spanned
it
with
a
concrete
bridge
,
while
the
thatch
of
the
houses
has
been
replaced
by
slates
of
a
metallic
green
.
Only
the
ruins
of
the
old
kirkton
have
not
been
meddled
with
;
these
stand
as
I
remember
them
,
knee
-
deep
in
docks
and
nettles
,
defended
by
a
crumbling
dry
-
stone
dyke
against
inquisitive
cattle
from
Crossbasket
.
The
old
folk
are
gone
,
too
,
and
their
very
names
are
passing
from
the
countryside
.
Long
before
my
day
the
Hawkshaws
had
disappeared
from
Calidon
,
but
there
was
a
respectable
Edinburgh
burgess
family
who
had
come
there
in
the
seventeenth
century
;
now
these
have
given
place
to
a
rawer
burgess
graft
from
the
West
.
The
farmers
are
mostly
new
men
,
and
even
the
peasant
,
who
should
be
the
enduring
stock
,
has
shifted
his
slow
bones
.
I
learned
from
the
postman
that
in
Woodilee
to
-
day
there
was
no
Monfries
,
no
Sprot
,
but
one
Pennecuik
,
and
only
two
bearers
of
the
names
of
Ritchie
and
Shillinglaw
,
which
had
once
been
plentiful
as
ragwort
.
In
such
a
renovated
world
it
was
idle
to
hope
to
find
surviving
the
tales
which
had
perplexed
my
childhood
.
No
one
could
tell
me
when
or
why
the
kirk
by
the
Crossbasket
march
became
a
ruin
,
and
its
gravestones
lay
buried
in
weeds
.
Most
did
not
even
know
that
it
had
been
a
kirk
.
I
was
not
greatly
surprised
by
this
,
for
the
kirk
of
Woodilee
had
not
been
used
for
the
better
part
of
three
centuries
;
and
even
as
a
child
I
could
not
find
many
to
tell
me
of
its
last
minister
.
The
thing
had
sunk
from
a
tale
to
an
"
owercome
,
"
a
form
of
words
which
every
one
knew
but
which
few
could
interpret
.
It
was
Jess
Blane
,
the
grieve
’
s
daughter
,
who
first
stirred
my
curiosity
.
In
a
whirl
of
wrath
at
some
of
my
doings
she
prayed
that
the
fate
of
the
minister
of
Woodilee
might
be
mine
-
-
a
fate
which
she
expounded
as
to
be
"
claught
by
the
Deil
and
awa
’
wi
’
.
"
A
little
scared
,
I
carried
the
affair
to
my
nurse
,
who
was
gravely
scandalized
,
and
denounced
Jess
as
a
"
shamefu
’
tawpie
,
fyling
the
wean
’
s
mind
wi
’
her
black
lees
.
"
"
Dinna
you
be
feared
,
dearie
,
"
she
reassured
me
.
"
It
wasna
the
Deil
that
cam
’
for
the
minister
o
’
Woodilee
.
I
’
ve
aye
heard
tell
that
he
was
a
guid
man
and
a
kind
man
.
It
was
the
Fairies
,
hinny
.
And
he
leev
’
d
happy
wi
’
them
and
dee
’
d
happy
,
and
never
drank
out
o
’
an
empty
cup
.
"
I
took
my
information
,
I
remember
,
to
the
clan
of
children
who
were
my
playmates
,
and
they
spread
it
among
their
households
and
came
back
with
confirmation
or
contradiction
.
Some
held
for
the
Devil
,
some
for
the
Fairies
-
-
a
proof
that
tradition
spoke
with
two
voices
.
The
Fairy
school
slightly
outnumbered
the
others
,
and
in
a
battle
one
April
evening
close
to
the
ruined
kirk
we
routed
the
diabolists
and
established
our
version
as
the
canon
.
But
save
for
that
solitary
fact
-
-
that
the
minister
of
Woodilee
had
gone
off
with
the
Fairies
-
-
the
canon
remained
bare
.
Years
later
I
got
the
tale
out
of
many
books
and
places
:
a
folio
in
the
library
of
a
Dutch
college
,
the
muniment
-
room
of
a
Catholic
family
in
Lancashire
,
notes
in
a
copy
of
the
second
Latin
edition
of
Wishart
’
s
Montrose
,
the
diaries
of
a
captain
of
Hebron
’
s
and
of
a
London
glove
-
maker
,
the
exercise
book
of
a
seventeenth
-
century
Welsh
schoolgirl
.
I
could
piece
the
story
together
well
enough
,
but
at
first
I
found
it
hard
to
fit
it
to
the
Woodilee
that
I
knew
-
-
that
decorous
landscape
,
prim
,
determinate
,
without
a
hint
of
mystery
;
the
bare
hilltops
,
bleak
at
seasons
,
but
commonly
of
a
friendly
Pickwickian
baldness
,
skirted
with
methodically
-
planned
woods
of
selected
conifers
,
and
girdled
with
mathematical
stone
dykes
;
the
even
,
ruled
fields
of
the
valley
bottom
;
the
studied
moderation
of
the
burns
in
a
land
meticulously
drained
;
the
dapper
glass
and
stone
and
metal
of
the
village
.
Two
miles
off
,
it
was
true
,
ran
the
noble
untamed
streams
of
Aller
;
beyond
them
the
hills
rose
in
dark
fields
to
mid
-
sky
,
with
the
glen
of
the
Rood
making
a
sword
-
cut
into
their
heart
.
But
Woodilee
itself
-
-
whither
had
fled
the
savour
?
Once
,
I
knew
from
the
books
,
the
great
wood
of
Melanudrigill
had
descended
from
the
heights
and
flowed
in
black
waves
to
the
village
brink
.
But
I
could
not
re
-
create
the
picture
out
of
glistening
asphalted
highway
,
singing
telegraph
wires
,
spruce
dwellings
,
model
pastures
,
and
manicured
woodlands
.
Then
one
evening
from
the
Hill
of
Deer
I
saw
with
other
eyes
.
There
was
a
curious
leaden
sky
,
with
a
blue
break
about
sunset
,
so
that
the
shadows
lay
oddly
.
My
first
thought
,
as
I
looked
at
the
familiar
scene
,
was
that
,
had
I
been
a
general
in
a
campaign
,
I
should
have
taken
special
note
of
Woodilee
,
for
it
was
a
point
of
vantage
.
It
lay
right
in
the
pass
between
the
Scottish
midlands
and
the
south
-
-
the
pass
of
road
and
water
-
-
yes
,
and
-
-
shall
I
say
?
-
-
of
spirit
,
for
it
was
in
the
throat
of
the
hills
,
on
the
march
between
the
sown
and
the
desert
.
I
was
looking
east
,
and
to
my
left
and
behind
me
the
open
downs
,
farmed
to
their
last
decimal
of
capacity
,
were
the
ancient
land
of
Manann
,
the
capital
province
of
Pictdom
.
The
colliery
headgear
on
the
horizon
,
the
trivial
moorish
hilltops
,
the
dambrod
-
pattern
fields
,
could
never
tame
wholly
for
me
that
land
’
s
romance
,
and
on
this
evening
I
seemed
to
be
gazing
at
a
thing
antique
and
wolfish
,
tricked
out
for
the
moment
with
a
sheep
’
s
coat
.
.
.
.
To
my
right
rose
the
huddle
of
great
hills
which
cradle
all
our
rivers
.
To
them
time
and
weather
bring
little
change
,
yet
in
that
eerie
light
,
which
revealed
in
hard
outline
while
it
obscured
in
detail
,
they
seemed
too
remote
and
awful
to
be
the
kindly
giants
with
whose
glens
I
daily
conversed
.
.
.
.
At
my
feet
lay
Woodilee
,
and
a
miracle
had
been
wrought
,
for
a
gloom
like
the
shadow
of
an
eclipse
seemed
to
have
crept
over
the
parish
.
I
saw
an
illusion
,
which
I
knew
to
be
such
,
but
which
my
mind
accepted
,
for
it
gave
me
the
vision
I
had
been
seeking
.
It
was
the
Woodilee
of
three
hundred
years
ago
.
And
my
mind
,
once
given
the
cue
,
set
out
things
not
presented
by
the
illuded
eye
.
.
.
.
There
were
no
highways
-
-
only
tracks
,
miry
in
the
bogs
and
stony
on
the
braes
,
which
led
to
Edinburgh
on
one
hand
and
to
Carlisle
on
the
other
.
I
saw
few
houses
,
and
these
were
brown
as
peat
,
but
on
the
knowe
of
the
old
kirkton
I
saw
the
four
grey
walls
of
the
kirk
,
and
the
manse
beside
it
among
elders
and
young
ashes
.
Woodilee
was
not
now
a
parish
lying
open
to
the
eye
of
sun
and
wind
.
It
was
no
more
than
a
tiny
jumble
of
crofts
,
bounded
and
pressed
in
upon
by
something
vast
and
dark
,
which
clothed
the
tops
of
all
but
the
highest
hills
,
muffled
the
ridges
,
choked
the
glens
and
overflowed
almost
to
the
edge
of
the
waters
-
-
which
lay
on
the
landscape
like
a
shaggy
fur
cast
loosely
down
.
My
mouth
shaped
the
word
"
Melanudrigill
,
"
and
I
knew
that
I
saw
Woodilee
as
no
eye
had
seen
it
for
three
centuries
,
when
,
as
its
name
tells
,
it
still
lay
in
the
shadow
of
a
remnant
of
the
Wood
of
Caledon
,
that
most
ancient
forest
where
once
Merlin
harped
and
Arthur
mustered
his
men
.
