“If you talk to any serious hiker they’re like yes, demons are real, make sure you don’t walk along a stream for too long, sometimes a witch trails me for miles, avoid wearing bright colours, and pray before entering the forest. The ancient is still very much alive along the edges.”
I stumbled upon that remark recently, and I’ve been laughing ever since. Not because it’s absurd (though the image of a Gore-Tex-clad rambler power-walking through Cumbria while muttering the Lord’s Prayer to keep the witches at bay is rather marvellous), but because it touches on a truth older than Gore-Tex, rambling, or Cumbria itself: the woods are never just woods.
Even the most rational among us, armed with Ordnance Survey maps, collapsible trekking poles, and three varieties of Kendal Mint Cake, step into the trees with a prickle of unease. Dante didn’t wander into a cheerful birch copse on a Bank Holiday Monday; he ‘found himself in a dark wood, where the straight way was lost.’ Thomas Hardy’s Egdon Heath is practically a character, forever brooding, while Shakespeare’s Birnam Wood gets up and walks. The forest, in literature and in life, remains the one place where reality itself feels a little less nailed down.
Now, let’s have a look at these supposed hiker’s tips:
‘Demons are real.’ I can’t help but agree. Try booking a bed & breakfast near Windermere in peak season – you’ll meet more demons than Dante ever catalogued. ‘Don’t walk along a stream for too long.’ Quite right. Streams are notorious in folklore: haunt of kelpies, nixies, and those odd water sprites who want nothing more than to drag you under. Practically speaking, walk too long by one and you’ll merely get trench foot, which is worse in some respects because at least nixies don’t require antibiotics. ‘Sometimes a witch trails me for miles.’ Ah yes. I’ve seen her too. Long black cloak, clattering staff, the smell of elderflower wine about her. On closer inspection, she turned out to be Barbara from Hexham Ramblers, who merely wanted to discuss the National Trust’s scandalous new parking charges. ‘Avoid wearing bright colours.’ Sound advice. Wear fluorescent orange in the woods and you look less like a hiker, more like an escaped traffic cone. ‘Pray before entering the forest.’ A touch dramatic perhaps, but not unwise. I find Psalm 23 works nicely: ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,’ especially if recited with the grim determination of someone about to face midges the size of Labradors.
And then, the great closing line: ‘The ancient is still very much alive along the edges.’ This, I think, is the secret to why the whole thing rings true. Folklore never died; it merely lingers on the margins – in the hedgerows, the riverbanks, the forest peripheries where signal drops and superstition creeps back in. Step a few feet off the trail and suddenly you’re in a Brothers Grimm sketch, praying your GPS doesn’t die just as you hear a twig snap behind you.
The hilarity, of course, is that we all know this. However secular, however rational, there remains a corner of our brain convinced that witches might still be about. It’s why horror films work, why campfire ghost stories still delight, why some of us cross ourselves before opening the fridge at midnight. We live in a world of satellites and spreadsheets, yes, but out there, just past the stile, the forest hasn’t quite got the memo.
So, if you meet a serious hiker, do ask them about demons, witches, and the colour of your jacket. They’ll probably laugh, then quietly suggest you bring a crucifix, a compass, and maybe – just maybe – a packed lunch blessed by your local vicar. After all, better safe than sorry. The ancient is still alive, and the edges are never as tidy as we’d like them to be.
Wording 