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Stories of Trees, Woods, and the Forest
A beautiful hardcover anthology of stories by a brilliant and surprising mix of classic and contemporary writers who have been inspired by trees.
Trees have starred in stories ever since Ovid described Daphne's metamorphosis into a laurel, and the landscape of literature has long been enlivened by wild woodlands, sacred groves, and fertile orchards. This delightful story collection ranges from Ovid to Austen and from Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest (via Thomas Love Peacock's "Maid Marian") to Treebeard's story in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Here are forest-haunted fairy tales both classic (the Brothers Grimm) and inventively retold (Angela Carter), and there is room in these woods for comedy as well as terror, in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm, and Alexander McCall Smith's "Head Tree." Here too are notable writers from around the world, including Yuri Olyesha, Jean Giono, Tove Jansson, Joseph Zobel, Yvonne Vera, Damon Galgut, D. H. Lawrence, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Eudora Welty. From Daphne du Maurier's "The Apple Tree" to N. K. Narayan's "Under the Banyan Tree," the sheer range of tales in these pages will leave readers refreshed and dazzled.
Part of Everyman's Library Pocket Classics Series
Trees have starred in stories ever since Ovid described Daphne's metamorphosis into a laurel, and the landscape of literature has long been enlivened by wild woodlands, sacred groves, and fertile orchards. This delightful story collection ranges from Ovid to Austen and from Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest (via Thomas Love Peacock's "Maid Marian") to Treebeard's story in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Here are forest-haunted fairy tales both classic (the Brothers Grimm) and inventively retold (Angela Carter), and there is room in these woods for comedy as well as terror, in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm, and Alexander McCall Smith's "Head Tree." Here too are notable writers from around the world, including Yuri Olyesha, Jean Giono, Tove Jansson, Joseph Zobel, Yvonne Vera, Damon Galgut, D. H. Lawrence, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Eudora Welty. From Daphne du Maurier's "The Apple Tree" to N. K. Narayan's "Under the Banyan Tree," the sheer range of tales in these pages will leave readers refreshed and dazzled.
Part of Everyman's Library Pocket Classics Series
479 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2010
27 people are currently reading
423 people want to read
About the author
Fiona Stafford
30 books38 followersProfessor Fiona Stafford is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She works on literature of the Romantic period, especially Austen, Burns, Clare, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge, and on their literary influences on modern poetry. Her research interests also include late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century culture; Irish and Scottish literature (post 1700); Archipelagic literature and art; Place and Nature Writing (old and new); Trees, Flowers and their cultural history; Environmental Humanities; literature and the visual arts.
Her most recent book is The Brief Life of Flowers (2018). Like her acclaimed book, The Long, Long Life of Trees (2016), it draws on first hand observation, literature, art, folklore, mythology, cultural history, natural science, botany, history of medicine.
Her most recent book is The Brief Life of Flowers (2018). Like her acclaimed book, The Long, Long Life of Trees (2016), it draws on first hand observation, literature, art, folklore, mythology, cultural history, natural science, botany, history of medicine.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 22, 2022
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
-Rudyard Kipling, The Way through the Woods
Arthur Rackham's Illustration of Ichabod Crane for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
This book is an anthology of stories inspired by Trees, Woods, and The Forests. Fiona Stafford has collected tales from antiquity to the modern era. It succeeds in capturing the atmosphere, awe, horror, and our emotional response to nature. Let's take a walk through the woods, shall we?
Look at the roots of that tree right by the banks, isn't that a bit exposed? Yet, the tree stands tall. Imagine being swept away by the current, would you hold on to those roots?.....Nah! maybe not, the current's too strong. By the way, doesn't that tree look a bit morose? Perhaps, the time has not been kind. Legends say that it might have been the transformed-grieving Cyparissus. Yet, I don't see any sign of a stag nearby. Let's take this trail here, it might lead us to open woods.
I see the footprints of a horse, nay! two horses. There was a chase. What's this that I see? A rotten pumpkin? How perplexing!
Did I ever tell you about a tale called "An Apple Tree" ? It's a preternatural story written by Daphne Du Maurier. In which, there is this cold-hearted husband who ignores his wife, before and after her death. It's like Rebecca, weird and creepy. Almost like the nauseating scent of sweet Applewood. There is a dream-like texture to that story. Not the kind where you crosscut between recurring but unresolved outcomes. But, the one where a hot summer's day slowly dissolves into a persistent nightmare.
Up ahead there's a patch of Midwestern Prairie which once hosted herds of Bison, Elk and Pronghorns. It's legacy is only preserved with names like Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove and Deerfield. Look! There's a siege of Sandhill Cranes flying in. How glorious do they look in the golden hour of the setting sun.
"It was as if three whirlwinds has drawn together at some center, to find there feeding in peace a snow heron. Its own slow spiral of flight could take away in its own time, but for a little it held them still, it laid quiet over them, and they stood for a moment unburdened." - Eudora Welty, A Still Moment
Ok, let's head back, it's getting dark. The fog is settling in and owls are on the hunt. This anthology brings out the grim and dense facets of the woods. Whether it's the march of faerie folk or the company of wolves, it provides the thrills of an evening walk, wouldn't you agree? Doesn't it feel like someone's watching your back?
I wonder if the forest remembers the Iron Hans dashing through or Robin Hood & his merry band's dancing-prancing.
Robert Leinweber's Depiction of scene from Iron Hans
We should look up to Elzéard & Sylvian for source of inspiration. They've left behind a thought provoking legacy.
We've reached the end of our journey. Thank you! for tagging along. I shall stay back and play my part. I shall soon see my body decay and disintegrate with the forest. A new sapling will sprout from my corpse to be the watch guard of this forest. Just like how Santiago Dabove imagined. Good bye!
Arthur Rackham's Illustration of Baucis and Philemon
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.
-Rudyard Kipling, The Way through the Woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
-Rudyard Kipling, The Way through the Woods
Arthur Rackham's Illustration of Ichabod Crane for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
This book is an anthology of stories inspired by Trees, Woods, and The Forests. Fiona Stafford has collected tales from antiquity to the modern era. It succeeds in capturing the atmosphere, awe, horror, and our emotional response to nature. Let's take a walk through the woods, shall we?
Look at the roots of that tree right by the banks, isn't that a bit exposed? Yet, the tree stands tall. Imagine being swept away by the current, would you hold on to those roots?.....Nah! maybe not, the current's too strong. By the way, doesn't that tree look a bit morose? Perhaps, the time has not been kind. Legends say that it might have been the transformed-grieving Cyparissus. Yet, I don't see any sign of a stag nearby. Let's take this trail here, it might lead us to open woods.
I see the footprints of a horse, nay! two horses. There was a chase. What's this that I see? A rotten pumpkin? How perplexing!
Did I ever tell you about a tale called "An Apple Tree" ? It's a preternatural story written by Daphne Du Maurier. In which, there is this cold-hearted husband who ignores his wife, before and after her death. It's like Rebecca, weird and creepy. Almost like the nauseating scent of sweet Applewood. There is a dream-like texture to that story. Not the kind where you crosscut between recurring but unresolved outcomes. But, the one where a hot summer's day slowly dissolves into a persistent nightmare.
Up ahead there's a patch of Midwestern Prairie which once hosted herds of Bison, Elk and Pronghorns. It's legacy is only preserved with names like Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove and Deerfield. Look! There's a siege of Sandhill Cranes flying in. How glorious do they look in the golden hour of the setting sun.
"It was as if three whirlwinds has drawn together at some center, to find there feeding in peace a snow heron. Its own slow spiral of flight could take away in its own time, but for a little it held them still, it laid quiet over them, and they stood for a moment unburdened." - Eudora Welty, A Still Moment
Ok, let's head back, it's getting dark. The fog is settling in and owls are on the hunt. This anthology brings out the grim and dense facets of the woods. Whether it's the march of faerie folk or the company of wolves, it provides the thrills of an evening walk, wouldn't you agree? Doesn't it feel like someone's watching your back?
I wonder if the forest remembers the Iron Hans dashing through or Robin Hood & his merry band's dancing-prancing.
Robert Leinweber's Depiction of scene from Iron Hans
We should look up to Elzéard & Sylvian for source of inspiration. They've left behind a thought provoking legacy.
We've reached the end of our journey. Thank you! for tagging along. I shall stay back and play my part. I shall soon see my body decay and disintegrate with the forest. A new sapling will sprout from my corpse to be the watch guard of this forest. Just like how Santiago Dabove imagined. Good bye!
Arthur Rackham's Illustration of Baucis and Philemon
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.
-Rudyard Kipling, The Way through the Woods
April 1, 2022
An arboreal delight.
Read
August 11, 2025I would read another of these collections … someone should get me one as a present i think
December 1, 2021
An interesting collection of stories about trees. It wasn't always the type of stories I expected but that was part of it's charm. My favorites included The Shades of Spring, The Gold of Fairnilee, and The Man Who Harvested Trees.
July 14, 2023
A selection of different stories, some long, some short, all featuring a particular tree or a forest/woods.
physical-tbr
August 9, 2024"Why Everyone Should Be Able to Tell a Story" by John Lorne Campbell
rating: tbd/5
"Orpheus' Audience of Trees" by Ovid
rating: tbd/5
"Head Tree" by Alexander McCall Smith
rating: tbd/5
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
rating: tbd/5
"The Apple Tree" by Daphne du Maurier
rating: tbd/5
"Happiness" by Sylvia Townsend Warner
rating: tbd/5
"A Tale" by Jane Austen
rating: tbd/5
"Love" by Yuri Olyesha
rating: tbd/5
"The Shades of Spring" by D. H. Lawrence
rating: tbd/5
From Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
rating: tbd/5
"The Totara Tree" by Roderick Finlayson
rating: tbd/5
"A Still Moment" by Eudora Welty
rating: tbd/5
"The Transformation of Daphne" by Ovid
rating: tbd/5
"The Road to the Shore" by Michael McLaverty
rating: tbd/5
"Summer" by Dorothy Baker
rating: tbd/5
"Flowers! Lovely Flowers!" by Joseph Zobel
rating: tbd/5
"Why Don't You Carve Other Animals" by Yvonne Vera
rating: tbd/5
"Shadows" by Damon Galgut
rating: tbd/5
"The Forest" by Tove Jansson
rating: tbd/5
"The Outlaws" by Ursula Moray Williams
rating: tbd/5
From Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock
rating: tbd/5
"Iron Hans" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
rating: tbd/5
"The Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter
rating: tbd/5
"The Gold of Fairnlee" by Andrew Lang
rating: tbd/5
"The Pool and the Tree" by Mary de Morgan
rating: tbd/5
"The Man Who Planted Trees" by Jean Giono
rating: tbd/5
"The Man Who Harvested Trees (and Gifted Life)" by Gabriel Hemery
rating: tbd/5
"Baucis and Philemon" by Ovid
rating: tbd/5
"Under the Banyan Tree" by R. K. Narayan
rating: tbd/5
rating: tbd/5
"Orpheus' Audience of Trees" by Ovid
rating: tbd/5
"Head Tree" by Alexander McCall Smith
rating: tbd/5
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
rating: tbd/5
"The Apple Tree" by Daphne du Maurier
rating: tbd/5
"Happiness" by Sylvia Townsend Warner
rating: tbd/5
"A Tale" by Jane Austen
rating: tbd/5
"Love" by Yuri Olyesha
rating: tbd/5
"The Shades of Spring" by D. H. Lawrence
rating: tbd/5
From Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
rating: tbd/5
"The Totara Tree" by Roderick Finlayson
rating: tbd/5
"A Still Moment" by Eudora Welty
rating: tbd/5
"The Transformation of Daphne" by Ovid
rating: tbd/5
"The Road to the Shore" by Michael McLaverty
rating: tbd/5
"Summer" by Dorothy Baker
rating: tbd/5
"Flowers! Lovely Flowers!" by Joseph Zobel
rating: tbd/5
"Why Don't You Carve Other Animals" by Yvonne Vera
rating: tbd/5
"Shadows" by Damon Galgut
rating: tbd/5
"The Forest" by Tove Jansson
rating: tbd/5
"The Outlaws" by Ursula Moray Williams
rating: tbd/5
From Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock
rating: tbd/5
"Iron Hans" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
rating: tbd/5
"The Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter
rating: tbd/5
"The Gold of Fairnlee" by Andrew Lang
rating: tbd/5
"The Pool and the Tree" by Mary de Morgan
rating: tbd/5
"The Man Who Planted Trees" by Jean Giono
rating: tbd/5
"The Man Who Harvested Trees (and Gifted Life)" by Gabriel Hemery
rating: tbd/5
"Baucis and Philemon" by Ovid
rating: tbd/5
"Under the Banyan Tree" by R. K. Narayan
rating: tbd/5
August 16, 2022
Lovely book – review later.
June 19, 2025
Great mix of various styles of writing, from all around the world.
August 26, 2025
These aren’t bad stories, but I find it hard to believe that the editor who collected them has much personal feeling for woods or forests. Most of the stories have trees or forests *in* them, but most aren’t about the trees or forests, they’re just set there. This is puzzling because there are many stories in the world where the forest is itself a character or a force - that’s what I hoped and expected from this collection. Alas.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews