Enchanted Forest

In literature, an enchanted forest is a forest under, or containing, enchantments. Such forests are described in the oldest folklore from regions where forests are common, and occur throughout the centuries to modern works of fantasy. They represent places unknown to the characters, and situations of liminality and transformation.

The forest can feature as a place of threatening danger, or one of refuge, or a chance at adventure.

The forest as a place of magic and danger is found among folklore wherever the natural state of wild land is forest: a forest is a location beyond which people normally travel, where strange things might occur, and strange people might live, the home of monsters, witches and fairies. Peasants who seldom if ever traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre could live an hour away. Hence, in fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel found a cannibalistic witch in the forest;Vasilissa the Beautiful encountered Baba Yaga herself;Molly Whuppie and her sisters ran into a giant. It was in a forest that the king of The Grateful Prince lost his way, and rashly promised his child for aid, where the heroines, and their wicked stepsisters, of The Three Little Men in the Wood and The Enchanted Wreath met magical tests, and where Brother and Sister found the streams that their evil stepmother had enchanted. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle's father is lost in the forest when he finds the Beast's castle. The evil cat-spirits of Schippeitaro live in the forest.

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