The Children’s Forest

There once was a small boy in a remote village in Austria whose step-father was of the wicked sort. At the slightest provocation, or sometimes with no provocation at all, he would unleash such cruelties upon the boy as would make all the world take pity upon him. His mother taken from him long ago by disease, he had no one to speak to, so he would go into the woods and tell his sorrows to the trees.

The trees heard his cries and vowed to protect him, to lead him to safety in his time need and to lead astray any who would do him harm. As the years passed, the boy came to care for the forest more than anything else. It nurtured him, cared for him. Led him to shelter and food. In all things it looked after him in a way a parent should, and as he grew, he took care of the forest in turn, chasing off poachers and ax men and cruel people who would use the seclusion to do foul deeds.

A man can only live so long, and in time the boy who had grown into a woodsman grew into an old hermit, and then grew to dust. The forest took his body into the earth, and pledged to look after all children in his honor. Children would come to the woods to play and the forest would lead them to safe places and away from dangers. When the children were lost, they would lead them home. The woods would open a path for kind parents to find their little ones, and twist the ways away through thorny brambles when those with evil intent in their hearts came into the woods in search of easy prey.

They vowed for as long as they lived to be a refuge for the innocent and pure and a bane to the wicked, the merciless, and the cruel. It is a vow the forest keeps to this day.

- Originally mailed to Gg in Texas