In The Woods by Amyas Northcote

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Everybody dies, don't they? Isn't that sorry? trying to get into the lockdown. How do the dead come back mother? What's that?

In the Woods by Ammias Northcote The old woman raised herself from stooping among her vegetables and looked upwards towards the wood topping the hill above her. A glance was arrested by a pair of moving figures. shading her eyes with her hand against the west ring sun the old woman gazed more attentively at them and distinguished outlined against the blackness of the fir trees the figures of a young girl and a large dog

Slowly, they mounted the grassy slope, and as they drew near the wood, its shadow seemed to her to stretch itself forward to meet them. They passed on and vanished in its recesses. The old woman, bent again to her task, The girl was tired and unhappy. She was tired with that tiredness that at seventeen seems hopeless and unending. It is a tiredness of mind, an ill far worse than any physical fatigue. She was unhappy with an unhappiness that being in a sense causeless is all the more unbearable.

She felt herself to be neglected, to be misunderstood, not be it remarked that she was neglected in the sense in which we apply to those in poverty and distress. on the contrary she was doubtless and she herself knew it an object of envy to many she lacked for no bodily comfort she owned to no neglect of mind governesses had implanted that which we call knowledge in her

Affectionate parents had lavished their love and care upon her. She had been watched, guided, advised, taught with all possible care. She knew all this. and she knew that if she expressed a reasonable wish for any concrete thing, she would promptly possess it. But yet, she felt herself neglected.

A lonely child, without brother or sister, and lacking the power or the will to find close friends among the other girls of her neighbourhood, she had been compelled to rely on her parents and their friends In childhood she had been happy, but now, with the passing of the years, she felt, dimly and indistinctly perhaps, that she was isolated and alone.

she moved onwards into the recesses of the wood the great st bernard beside her treading with familiar steps the well-known track letting her eyes rest on the stately beauty of the trees and her tired thoughts draw repose from their profound calm her way led gradually upwards over the crest of a ridge covered with the dark grandeur of scotch firs in a few moments after entering the wood the trees closing their ranks behind her blotted out every glimpse of the valley whence she had come

in front and on each side of her they rose towering straight and tall with clean stems upwards to where their dark green foliage branched out and almost hid the sky Here and there rare gaps appeared, and in these open spaces the bracken leapt up to gaze upon the sun and waved its green fronds in the gentle breeze. her footsteps fell noiseless on the smooth dry pine needles as she hurried on drinking in the first feelings of rest the rest and peace of the great woods

Presently the trees began to thin in front of her. The gaps among them became more frequent and larger, and soon, passing out of the firwood, she gazed down onto a happy valley between two ridges. Beyond the valley, the fir trees recommend black and formidable looking against the slowly setting sun except away to her left where the declining ridge opposite sank gently into more open country, and she could descry beyond the trees a fair prospect of unwooded fields.

in front of her as she emerged from among the pines was a pool of still water fed by a little brook which meandered down a green and wooded valley a valley of osiers and willow and hazel carpeted at this season with buttercups and ragged robin and fringed by tall foxgloves by flowering elder and mountain ash. Among these lesser plants an occasional oak towered up, gnarled and misshapen, resembling beside the stately firs some uncouth giant of a bygone age.

The wood was very still. The afternoon hush lay upon it. There were no sounds, save a gentle whispering of the wind among the fur tops. and the occasional harsh cry of a jay startled by the rare sight of a human form or the metallic note of a moorhen swimming across the pool with its queer clockwork-like motion With these sounds mingled the gentle tinkle of water escaping from the pool over a hoary floodgate and trickling away towards the cultivated lands below.

All else was silent and moveless, and the girl, seating herself on the stump of a long vanished tree, relapsed into absolute quiet, the dog lying equally still beside her.

Gradually, the last gift of Pandora reasserted itself. She began to feel more confident in herself and in her future. True, the way was weary and long. Lack of sympathy, lack of interest prevented her, but she felt that within herself lay the seeds of great deeds. The world would yet hear of her, success would yet be at her feet. Formless were the dreams, uncertain even in which direction they would be realised, but chief among them was her dream of music, her beloved music.

the paths too many an ambition are closed to women this she bitterly realized but at any rate music lies open to them The visions became more clearly defined. The tinkling water, the rustling pines, resolved themselves into stirring rhythms and interlacing harmonies. In her excitement she moved slightly. The great dog, opening his eyes, glanced up and licked the hand of his companion. This recalled her to herself.

she looked up with a start first at the evening sky and then at her watch and with a little exclamation at the lateness of the hour hastened to retrace her footsteps through the trees Presently, she emerged again on the open hillside and hurried downwards. The trees, bending to the rising wind, seemed to reach out long arms after her.

The woods enthralled her. Her days were spent more and more dreaming in their recesses. she was much alone her father a busy man breakfasted and was gone till evening before she came down of a morning an early tradition of delicate health having made her a late riser In the evening on his return he was usually tired. Kind, but tired.

Her mother, long an invalid, was away from home on an interminable cure, and in her absence even the rare visits of dull country neighbours ceased, and so she lived, surrounded by comforts. A forgotten girl.

She grew more and more abstracted and dreamy. She neglected her duties, even her personal appearance suffered. The servants, who had long regarded her as eccentric, began to grow anxious, even a little alarmed. She became irregular in all her habits. She would stray away into the woods for hours, careless of time. In her rambles, she became familiar with every corner of the woods.

She was a familiar figure to the watchful gamekeeper and to the old woodman at his work. With these she was on a friendly footing.

Once convinced that the great St. Bernard harboured no evil intentions as regards his pheasants, the keeper was civil enough and after a word or two of salutation used to stand and watch the lithe lonely brown-clad figure slipping away from him among the brown tree trunks with a queer mixture of sympathy and bewilderment but with the old woodman the young girl made closer friends

she loved to watch him at his solitary toil and to note in his lined face the look of one who has lived his life in solitude among the beauties of the woods and who has become cognizant of their glories and of part of their mysteries She would speak to the old man, but little she spoke to few and rarely in those days. But her watch of him was sympathetic, and she seemed to be trying to draw from him something of that woodland mystery in which he was steeped.

and alone in the woods she grew ever closer to them the trees began to be for her more than mere living trees they began to become personalities At first, only certain of them were endowed with personality, but gradually she became aware that each tree was a living and sentient being. She loved them all, even the distorted oak trees were her friends.

Lying prone in her favourite corner overhanging the pool, the forest became more and more alive, and the firs waving and rustling in the wind were souls lifting up their voices to God. She imagined them each with a living, separate soul and mourned for a fallen giant as if it were a friend. Ever more and more rapt she became, more and more silent and unresponsive to her fellow men.

At times her father would gaze earnestly at the silent girl clad in her simple white frock seated opposite him, but he could discern nothing to disturb him. Her mother wrote and the girl answered letters of affection but covering up within herself all the deep mysteries and yearnings of her heart.

The woods enthralled her. in them as she paced to and fro or rested on the stem of some fallen tree listening to the rustling of the branches around she became conscious that they were ringing with melody She felt that here and here alone among the trees she could produce that divine music which her soul held expressionless within her.

vainly she would strive in her music room to reach even the lowest terrace of that musical palace whose grandest halls were freely open to her among the solitudes of the woods Little by little did she become absorbed into them. She dared not as yet visit them at night on account of the certain annoyance of her father, but by day she almost lived in them, and her belief in the souls of the trees grew stronger and ever stronger.

She would sit for hours, motionless, hoping, believing that at any moment the revelation might come to her and that she would see the dryads dancing and hear the pipes of pan. But there was nothing. Another day of disappointment, she would cry.

the summer passed on one of those rare summers which only too seldom visit our english land but which when they do appear by their wonderful beauty and delight serve to make us thankful to be alive if only to enjoy the joys of nature On one of these glorious days, the girl had wandered out, as usual, into the woods. It was afternoon. The sky was cloudless. The wind was almost still. But at times a gentle breath from the west made a soft rustling amongst the pine branches far overhead.

As the girl moved on, she gazed around her on the well-known trees. All was as usual. Nature spread her beauties before her, glorious, mysterious, veiled from the ken of the human soul. The girls stopped. Is there nothing, she cried, nothing behind this? Is nature all a painted show? I have so longed for nature to find the peace and pierce the mystery of the woods, and nothing comes in answer to my soul's call.

She moved on again, passionate, eager, yearning, with all the yearning of youth and growth for the new, the wonderful. Presently, she reached her seat above the pool and, sitting down, buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders heaved, her feet beat the ground in hasty emotion, her soul cried out in longing.

Suddenly she ceased to move. For a moment longer she sat in her old attitude, then, lifting her face, She gazed around her. Something had happened. Something. In those few moments. To her outward eye all was unchanged, the pool still lay silent in the sunlight, the breeze still murmured in the treetop. The goldenrod still nodded in the sun at the verge of the pool, and the heather still blazed on the lower slopes of the ridge opposite her.

But there had come a change. An unseen change. And in a flash the girl understood. We're aware of her. The trees knew of her presence and were watching her. The very flowers and shrubs were cognizant of her. A feeling of pride, of joy, and of a little fear possessed her. She stretched out her arms. Oh, my beloved playmate, she cried, you have come at last.

She listened, and the gentle breeze among the pine trees seemed to change, and she could hear its voices, nay, the very sentences of those voices. calling to each other in a language still strange to her ears but which she felt she knew she would soon understand She knew she was being watched, discussed, appraised,

and a faint sense of disappointment stole over her. Where was the love and beauty of nature? These woods, were they friendly or hostile? Surely such beauty could mean nothing but love. She began to grow fearful. What was going to happen next? She knew something great was coming, something awe-inspiring, something perchance terrible.

Already she began to feel invisible, inaudible beings closing in upon her. Already she began to know that slowly her strength, her will, were being drawn out of her. And for what end?

Terror began to possess itself of her when suddenly on the farther side of the pool she saw the old woodman slowly plodding on his homeward way. the sight of the familiar figure clad in his rough fustian clothes bending under a new-cut faggot to which was tied the bright red handkerchief containing the old man's dinner-pail A splash of bright colour outlined against the green verdure by the pool was as a dash of cold water over a fainting man.

She braced herself up and watched the distant figure. As she did so, as silently, as suddenly, as the mysterious door had opened, it closed again. The woods slept again, ignorant of and indifferent to the young girl.

But that night, long after the household slept, the girl was at her window, gazing out across the valley to where the fir woods crowned the opposite hill. Long she watched them, as they towered irregular and mysterious, overhanging the grey moonlit fields and sleeping village below them.

They seem to her now to be a strong, thick wall, defending the quiet valley below, and guarding it from ill, and now... to be the advance guard of an enemy overhanging her peaceful village home and waiting but the word to swoop down and overwhelm it. The woods enthralled her.

She felt herself on the point of penetrating their mystery. A glimpse had been given her, and now she hesitated and doubted, torn between many emotions. The fascination of fear possessed her. She dreaded And yet she loved the woods. For a day or two after her adventure she shunned them, but they lured her to them, and again and again she went, seeking, hoping for. dreading What she knew must come.

But her search was vain. Silently and blindly the woods received her, though again and again she felt that after she had passed she was noted, she was discussed, and that her coming was watched for. The fascination and the fear grew. Her food, her few duties were all neglected. She felt, she knew, that her eyes would soon be opened.

The summer was over. September was upon the world of the woods. The bracken was turning into a thousand shades of yellows and browns. The heather was fading. The leaves of the early trees were browning. The bulrushes hung their dying heads. The flowers were nearly over. The goldenrod alone seemed to defy the changing year. The young rabbits, the fledgling birds, the young life had all disappeared. At times one saw a lordly cock pheasant or his more modest wife strut across the woodland rides.

Once in a while, with a loud clapping of wings, wild duck would rise from the pool. Among the hazel bushes the squirrels were busy garnering their winter store, and from the distant fields the young girl, as she sat in her well-loved corner of the woods, could hear the far-off lowing of cattle.

The afternoon was heavy and oppressive. A dull sensation of coming change hung over the woods, dreaming their last dreams of summer. The furs stood dark and motionless with a faint aspect of menace in their clustering ranks. No birds were moving among them. No rabbits slipped from one patch of yellowing bracken to another. All was still as the young girl sat, musing by her well-loved pool.

Suddenly she started up listening. Far off, up in the green valley, beyond where a cluster of oziers hid the bend, she seemed to hear a sound of piping. very faint and far off it seemed very sweet and enthralling sweets with a tang of bitter in the sweet enthralling with a touch of threatening

as she stood listening eagerly and with the air of one who hears what he has hoped and longed and dreaded to hear that same well-remembered sudden subtle change passed over the woods Once more, she became aware that the trees were alive, were watching her, and this time she felt that they were closer. Their presences were more akin to her than before.

And it seemed to her as if everywhere figures, light, slender, brown-clad figures, were passing to and fro, coming from, fading into, the brown trunks of the trees. She could not discern these figures clearly. As she turned to watch, they faded out, but sidelong they seemed to flock and whirl in a giddy dance. Ever the sound of the piping drew nearer, bringing with it strange thoughts.

overpowering sensations sensations of growth of life thoughts of the earth vague desires unholy thoughts sweet but deadly. As the sounds of the piping drew nearer, The vague, elusive figures danced more nimbly. They seemed to rush towards the girl, to surround her from behind, from each side, never in front, never showing clearly, always shifting, always fading. The girl felt herself changing.

Wild impulses to leap into the air, to cry aloud, to sing a new strange song, to join in the wild woodland dance, possessed her. joy filled her heart and yet mingling with the joy came fear fear at first low-lying bidden but gradually gaining a fear a natural fear of the secret mysteries unfolding before her. And still the piping drew nearer. It was coming.

It was coming. It was coming down the quiet valley through the oak trees that seemed to spring to attention to greet it as soldiers salute the coming of their king. The piping rose louder and more clear. Beautiful it was and entrancing but evil and menacing.

The girl knew, deep in her consciousness she knew, that when it appeared, evil and beauty would come conjoined in it. Her terror and her sense of helplessness grew. It was very near now. The dancing elusive forms were drawing closer around her. The firwoods behind her were closing against her escape.

she was like a bird charmed by a serpent her feet refused to fly her conscious will to act and the terror drew ever nearer despairingly she looked around her despairingly uttered a cry of helpless agony

The great St. Bernard, lying at her feet, disturbed by her cry, raised himself to his haunches and looked up into her face. the movement of the dog recalled him to her thoughts she looked down at him into the wise old eyes that gazed up at her with love and with the calm look of the aged the experienced of one from whom all the illusions of life had faded

In the peaceful, sane, loving look of the dog, the girl saw safety escape. Oh, Bran, save me, save me, she cried, and clung to the old dog's neck. Slowly he arose, stretched himself, and with the girl holding fast to his collar, turned towards the homeward path. As they moved forwards together, the whirling form seemed to fade and to recede, the menacing clustered firs fell back, the piping changed, and harsh and discordant resolved itself into the whistle of the rising wind.

the very sky seemed to grow lighter the air less heavy and so they passed through the woods together and emerging from their still clutching shadows stood gazing across the valley darkening in the evening light towards the gates of home lit up by the cheerful rays of the setting sun

The old woman, resting her aching back, looked up and saw the girl descending from the woods with quick light steps I wish I were as young and carefree as she, she muttered, and stooped again among her vegetables. Everybody dies. Isn't that so? You tried to get into the locked drawer today, didn't you? Come back, mother.

So let's get cracking! Now remember, if you don't want to listen to this, there are long compilations of stories on the YouTube channel, like 12 hours, 8-12 hours, where there's no commentaries at all. So if that's what you want to do, you know, go there. If you are interested in the commentary, which a lot of people seem to be, let's get moving so Ammius Northcote pronounced Ammius I think born 1864 died 1923 A little bit of biography first.

So, Ammias Stafford Northcote was a British writer of supernatural fiction best known for his single collection of ghost stories. He only did one, a slim volume as they say, in Ghostly Company, published in 1921. He was born into the aristocracy and he was the seventh child of Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddersley, a prominent conservative politician.

Raised at Pines House near Exeter, Amius grew up in a household frequented by major political figures such as the Israeli Lord Salisbury and Randolph Churchill, so the glitterati politically of his time were hanging round his house. His father was a devotee of the theatre and literature and had a special fondness for ghost stories and tales for the Arabian night. which he would recount to his children so early influences like this you can imagine might fertilize the mind of young Amias

He was educated at Eton College during the same period as M.R. James, so he was contemporary of M.R. James. Now, there's an interesting thing about scholars and I'm not enough into it but there's a division between scholars who are not gentlemen and that whole thing went on to Oxford as well I think they went to Cambridge no he went to Oxford so yeah I was reading that whose biography was that no it was um What's his name? Come on.

John Ruskin, great autobiography he wrote and he talks about how he went up and his family was relatively well healed but his father was in trade. This is Ruskin. and so he was a scholar he wasn't a gentleman and there was a big division between the two this was at Oxford so there would have been a division in class between M. R. James and

Ammias Northcote, even though they were there at the same time. So Northcote later studied, as we know, at Oxford and eventually served as a justice to the peace in Buckinghamshire, so that's his life. jumped over pretty much went to university at age 20 later on served as a justice of the peace there's about 40 years missing actually how many years is that he wasn't massively old when he died so he would be let me do some mathematics

59, not massively old, said the man who was 64. So following the death of his father, the Earl, in 1887 Northcote emigrated to America and settle in Chicago where he ran a small business. Imagine that. Well, he was never going to be the Earl. He was the seventh son. Yeah, I'm an Earl's son, but I run, I sell motor parts in Chicago. Or beer, perhaps.

or pretzels, who knows, and he married Helen Mary Dudley of Kentucky. He wrote occasional journalistic pieces marked by a reserved and coolly observational tone. traits that would characterize the emotional restraint of his later fiction. Upon returning to England at the turn of the century he maintained residences in London and the Chilterns. So obviously his business in Chicago did pretty well selling pretzels. to be able to have houses in the Chilterns and in London neither.

of which are particularly cheap places to buy a house, where he quietly pursued his literary interests, his stories often subtle, quietly unsettling and thematically akin to those of M. R. James. I'm going to say something about that later. soon, in fact, eschewed overt horror in favour of psychological unease. His most famous story is Brick at Bottom, which we've done

Now what I would say, and I'm going to say this, is I read this story I wasn't getting. You know when people taste wine? Or even coffee. And you go, I'm getting blackberries, geraniums, you know, a slight tinge of musk. And you're like, yeah. Well, when I do the same as stories. And I'm getting a bouquet of M. R. James crossed with E. F. Benson crossed with Eleanor Scott. So let's talk about this story published in 1921 in his one and only collection.

the woods. He's got another story in that collection called something like the house in the woods or staying in the woods overnight so he's obviously keen on woods So it was published by Bodley Head in 1921, released just before Christmas, smart marketing ploy, a traditional series for ghost stories in England. It says it exemplifies his restrained psychological suggestive side.

when I'm doing my notes I kind of look at it and I look at what other people have said and I actually talk to ChatGPT as well and I do all sorts of and I say what do you think what do you think and To me, this is a mystical story. It's not... There is a tinge of horror. You know, because horror doesn't just include ghosts It doesn't include chainsaw killers either uh it it can be and so i'm going to come to the first hint

I'm thinking, I'm getting Algernon Blackwood. Yeah, that mystical stuff that he writes about, I think, of descent into Egypt, but primarily in this case, the man whom the trees loved, which was published in 1912. You go and listen to the story. I've done it. But that's also about a man who's obsessed by the woods. And the woods are sentient. He feels the woods. The woods don't ever actually talk to him. And go, hey, you know, whatever your name is. I just want to chat with you.

They don't. But he feels them. And they're not wholly loving either. So I was getting definitely a big whiff of that story. The man whom the trees loved. I think it's you know Blackwood is very interesting in mystical stuff he was an occultist He was, you know, a philosopher, you know, an amateur philosopher. And so I was getting a whiff of Algernon Blackwood, the man whom the trees loved. Let's keep sniffing.

and yeah oh i'm getting arthur macken the hill of dreams published 1907 Arthur Mack and Hildremmes great novella and this so if in a sense the man whom the trees loved has this the sentient and not wholly friendly actually quite alien but mystical forest that wants to consume you that's that but also but when we go to Arthur Macken's A Hill of Dreams we have this man in rural Wales and this the protagonist Lucy and Taylor is this isolated introspective and

Aesthetic prone to aesthetic rapture guy and he's a poet you know and she's a musician and so both these protagonists are seeking transcendence through nature so I think this is a hint to what the story is about really. and we'll come back to other opinions exist but but you know me I'm a bit mystically inclined and 에이 So the idea that through nature we approach the numinous, we approach the Godhead, we approach the divine through nature. It's not a new idea, it's a very romantic idea.

But we also see it in the classical world with Pan, you know, the great god Pan, who inspired panic. So, whereas it was the god of wild places, those places, and I think this is a theme, are not wholly nice, you know, they are consuming, they are overpowering.

and I think we get that this potential disintegration of the personality in the hill of dreams it goes full throttle no spoilers but in this one she's saved and i think what she's saved by is really interesting as well and we'll come back to that So I've got my Algernon Blackwood Alpha Mac

Kenneth Graham, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, published in 1908. So, you know that The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a chapter from The Wind and the Willows, but to be fair, it could have been published as a separate story. I've done that as well. And so... You may know that the ratty and mole, I think it is, they go into this blissful wood by the river. They go down the river and into the wood and in there

Up until, whereas in both, in all the stories we've discussed so far, the woods are actually slightly unnerving. Up until, stay with me on this if you know the story, up until... ratty and mole it's it's idyllic it's blissful it's wonderful and then they meet pan no spoilers and he is Wonderful, but terrible as Pan is. And I think that is what we're seeing that this this divine spirit of nature

is both nourishing to humans. Think of how many of us enjoy being in nature and what a benefit we get from it. But nature, and I think we moderns have forgotten the dark side of nature. We've put it away. It's like this is a whole other subject, but the whole issue of death, we in the modern West, Whether you're in Australia, you still count as a modern West, although you're technically South, East.

well west depending on where if you're in California the Australians are southwest I suppose but let's not get hung up about that this idea of the round earth hasn't completely been accepted by everybody but if we do accept it then you know the South West of California, but South East of me in Australia and New Zealand. Let's not forget the Kiwis. Anyway, when was I? So I've completely lost myself now.

um yeah the west how we've put death away we we kind of we don't want anything to do with it we're and killing you know our we get our meals in restaurants and supermarkets and they may look I mean even your burger even your cider beef, cider beef is you don't buy cider beef but you may buy a beef joint

or lamb chops you it's removed from the animal i'll tell you what if you're going to we do whole feeding complete feeding for the dog so we're going to this shop and there's raw food and chicken legs and rabbits ears and all sorts of stuff when you look at that you're kind of clear and

yeah those are real animals you know whereas we've put it aside and so the reason I'm making that point about putting death and killing aside is that we've put to one side the dark side of nature and we only seem to get you know hey let's go hiking in the Jellystone National Park

meet Yogi Bear and that's gonna be and Yogi Bear himself you know Yogi Bear hey he's great not do you want to be a real grizzly bear no you don't or a polar bear aren't they so cute they as they say you know they will try and climb inside your vehicle and eat you.

So, you know, but my point is in these stories the terrifying side of nature is is kept you know we have that fear of nature the final book in my bouquet of sniffing a much later one and it's slightly different but I think it's a good book if you want to if you're interested in the deep forest the myths and there's loads of these of course but those are the ones I'm coming with is Robert Holstock's Mythargo Award published 1984 where there's this Dracula's forest they fly over in all sorts

and all sorts of strange creatures are moving in it, these mythargos which are kind of like Jungian archetypes, they're archetypal they're historical figures but then they aren't archetypes of history so do you know how um think about king arthur king arthur may have been a real warrior

But over the centuries, he becomes a mythological figure, you know, and he accretes all sorts of stories and wonder working to himself. And this happened to the stories of the saints as well. I mean, it used to make me smile about the Celtic saints. How was it? St Ninian or St Mungo. St Mungo gets a fish to save the Queen of Glasgow, gets a ring from a fish's gullet to save the Queen of Glasgow from being caught in her adultery. One of them might be Ninian.

brings fresh blackberries to the king at Christmas like it couldn't be done. Then St Perrin goes over to Brittany from Cornwall in a cockle shell you know so these may have been historical figures but over time they become mythological and I think Mythargo the name gives it away it plays with this idea that in the deep forest which is a kind of a symbolic of our unconscious if you like These mythical figures move. Wordsworth of course in the prelude talks about huge and mighty forms.

which, let me think if I'm quoted properly, moved through my... mind by day and were a trouble to my dreams. I've misquoted him. But there are these huge and mighty forms in nature, this is what Wordsworth is talking about, which are disturbing as well as compelling. So that's all of that. I'm going to say something just if I haven't said enough about the danger of nature. So before the 18th century we have Romanticism of Wordsworth as a culprit but we have Goethe words of Friedrich

Then we have Rousseau and people like that who say, hey, nature's really cool. And then Thoreau and Walden and all the American side of things. He blustered.

forgetting some of the names and so before that time and if you read the fairy stories pre-romantic fairy stories the woods are bad they're full of wolves witches brigands evil spirits and you have the orderly cultivated garden and the village and then you have the things that lurk in the wild which are frightening so you think about our ancestors wherever you're from is true for all our human ancestors

The wilds are dangerous and so the human instinct throughout history has been to conquer them to tame them And that's what we were doing up until the 18th century in the West well that's what all we wanted to do we've had no other idea of of thinking they were nice for their own sake they were scary they were bad we wanted to dominate the world and and then we did do it and now we're like oh you know oh that's a pity let's go back let's rewild things

So things swing, don't they? But you know, that's a really important thing. Up until the 18th century, nature was scary. and this is preserved in this story even though it's a story from the early 20th century whereby nature isn't scary and there's this hankering for the mystical the return of the mystical to the western spirit through nature which is a big deal

in 20th century 21st century western yearning you know think of Rebecca Solnit as I've got a couple of her books this is all about that this this epiphany through nature God is in nature has become in nature as we've thrown him out of the church not all of us

but you know what i mean as western society has done that uh he's got to be somewhere and if you can't find him in the way where you left him if you've lost him where he used to be he or she or it is gonna come back um Let's look at another more prosaic

way of looking at this young girl is she's very lonely in a way perhaps only an aristocrat could be and maybe this is his own upbringing because there'd be all these common children but she can't mixed with them tell you I'm reminded by of a story I did

catherine mansfield story the garden party where the young girl from the posh house goes to the working people and it's like two different species so this girl although she may have been surrounded by lusty village children she couldn't She couldn't mix with them.

you know they would only be allowed to, there was too much of a class divide between it so she's lonely in the way only and an upper-class girl of her background in those times could be and the mother's an invalid so you know she's away and the dad's busy he sounds like a nice fella the dad but he's busy maybe you should say he should pay a bit more attention to his daughter than and than his business but you know Fair enough. We don't really know him so we don't know anything much about him.

but so that's her loneliness yeah and she's drawn to music we know that she's drawn to the woods we know that um of course the classic sort of thing they're trying to do in some of the There's not many studies of this story.

but one of the suggestions is about the burgeoning pubescent sexuality of an adolescent girl you know like you know Angela Carter's company wolves I mean that may actually be the case in that story but in this story I think it's a bit of a stretch there's nothing unless of course we get all Freudian we talk about sublimation so let's talk about sublimation So Freud's idea is that the libido, this vital energy, goes out and is primarily expressed in sex.

sorry and however the society finds that very problematic it's very powerful chaotic energy and so it tends to you know try and control those that kind of that kind of thing, that sort of thing, as I would say in Father Ted, down with that sort of thing. And Freud talked about this idea of sublimation. Was it Anna Freud or Sigmund? I don't know.

so if you are repressed in that way or you can't allow yourself those feelings because you've been told they're naughty you may become artistic I'm not saying this is the reason why people are artistic but in a Freudian sense it is a sublimation of the libido into another kind of creation which is artistic creation just shows you that anyway so I don't buy it

potentially by the sublimation I don't think that's what this story is mainly about it goes bang you got follower of Carl Gustav Jung, I would say from a more Jungian sense, okay? And I talk about Jung a lot, but not in a systematic way, so the key concepts of Jungian thought may be completely alien and unknown to most people. I'm going to start where Jung ended, really. One of his last concepts that came out in his writing was the Unus Mundus, Unus Mundus, One World in Latin.

and that's related to his idea of synchronicity about how An event can happen both on the inside, psychically, internally in your minds and your feelings and your observations and what is significant to you. And at the same time in the external world is classic. An example of this is a client comes to him with this idea of

what you call them, the beetle, those beetles, dung beetles in ancient Egypt which rolled up the sun, the sun, you know, there's a word for them, I've forgotten it, and they symbolised rebirth. And at the same time, a very similar beetle was batting at the window of the study. or the clinic room where they were talking and this was a congruence, a synchronicity, same

Something happening at the same time which has a meaning or is happening both in the external and is meaningful in the internal world. I'll tell you one of my things. I went to see Hawkwind in Newcastle And you may know, I may have said that currently my other obsession is the Cornish language. I'm doing Cornish night classes and I'm learning Cornish.

So Cornish is an extinct language, it has no native speakers, may have a few being brought up now, but it died out in the early 19th century, potentially late 18th, early 19th century. It was a Celtic language. in Cornwall and it's been revived. so it's fairly niche as an interest in terms of The numbers of people who actually know any Cornish is really small. It's in the tens of thousands potentially now. Maybe six, six thousand.

I saw the figure anyway so and my other love is Hawkwind you know has been since I was since 1975 and so I go and see Hawkwind and there's a band I maybe said this before band comes on and I'm listening. I think they're singing in Cornish. And in the song, this guy goes, Thank you in Cornish. And I'm like,

I'm obsessed with Cornwall. I'm in Newcastle upon time, which is the furthest you can get from Cornwall and still be in England. One is in the top North East, the other is in the bottom South West. And it's such an, I've never heard a band singing Cornish in my life. And here in my, so it's like, that seemed to me to be a kind of synchronicity. And many of these synchronicities are apparently meaningless, you know, there you go, that's weird. Or, you know, you see the name...

George Wright on a van and then you see a book by George Wright the next day and then you bump into your old friend and you remember oh he's called George Wright and you're like okay that's meaningful and then you try and work out what the meaning is and it's very hard to know apart from That was weird, you know. It's almost like the universe prompting you going, it's not as simple as you think this.

and that is Jung's idea of the Unus Mundus is to say the external world and the internal world of our feelings and thoughts are the same thing one is psychic and the other is matter matter exists in the psyche. You only ever experience matter through your sensations, feelings and internal stuff. So matter is a child of mind if you like. That's what I think. I'm an idealist as well. I mean with a big eye and so The forest?

in dreams is clearly a symbol, can be an archetype, a repeated motif that happens in people down the generations, in art, in dreams, in insanity. These similar symbols come up they happen in culture that we behave in specific like in a simple way that is less controversial is like at the moment the birds be building and slaying eggs who told them to do that? but they do it you know and so there is this

And presumably they felt motivated to do it. Something made them do it. And like me, in Kit Kats, I'm motivated to go and eat a Kit Kat. Something makes me eat a Kit Kat. I don't know what it is. I don't want to eat the Kit Kat, but it makes me do it. And so... So clearly there's an internal and external, it is synchronous, it's happening at the same time, not strictly a synchronicity. So if she dreamt of a forest that would clearly be, oh yes that's an image of herself, her psyche.

But the real forest can also be that. And I know this is a story and she's not a real girl, she didn't go in a real forest, but there are real forests and they can be symbolic of The unconscious, what I mean by the, I mean the self. Jungian terms the self. So the self is the totality of everything that is. It is God. We are in it. It is in us. It is not an object as such. It exists outside.

that has no meaning outside. The word outside in this context has no meaning but what I'm saying is this represents her psyche, it represents the unconscious. Jung was very clear and let me read this actually so I'm going to read this what I wrote down because it's easier Northcote's story can be read as a depiction of the girls encounter with a numinous unconscious that is the divine that feeling of divinity

a central Jungian concept describing those psychic forces that exceed the ego's capacity to comprehend or control. It's bigger than us. The ego is little us. We're sitting in a little boat on a massive ocean. That's the ego. The ocean is the self or the unconscious, same thing. In Jung's view the unconscious is not merely a repository of repressed content which is a Freudian view.

but a dynamic realm that carries the divine and the demonic the creative and the destructive it contains the opposites undifferentiated and is therefore often experienced as simultaneously alluring and terrifying. The girls deepening immersion in the woods. Remember they enthralled her. Remember the origin of that word is from a Scandinavian thrall. A slave. They enslaved her. The woods make her and then he said something coarse and not coarse but you know perhaps inappropriate

So her deepening immersion in the woods, her sense of being watched, the elation that veers into dread, the piping that is both beautiful and menacing captures this doubleness. The forest becomes an image of the self. vast, impersonal, filled with mystery. Yet for the unprepared ego, typically in a young person, such contact risks dissolution. The girl's near loss of will, her passivity before the approaching IT. Freud used the word id in Latin or s in German.

reflects the danger Jung warned of when one is overwhelmed by archetypal forces yeah so it reflects the danger Jung warned of when one is overwhelmed by archetypal forces a rescue by the dog symbol of loyalty, instinct and grounding in the real can be seen as a return to psychic balance, a reminder that the ego must relate to the unconscious but not be devoured by it because if you're devoured by it or possessed by it you become insane.

The girl's enchantment with the forest may also be interpreted through a Jungian lens, okay, particularly in relation to the archetype of the Puer Eternus, although she's a Puella, she's a girl, the eternal boy, the boy who never grows up, the eternal youth who yearns for transcendence,

but risks losing contact with reality. So the two classic stories of this, the archetype of the pure Eternus, the eternal boy, pure Eternus, is that story, the little prince, where he flies flies in his aeroplane and also Icarus who flies too high and is dissolved by flying too high and getting too close to the burning sun you know.

and that is the danger that you're warned of if you're not prepared and respect the danger of the unconscious it is the dragon that guards the horde it has the secrets it has the treasure but it can kill you you know literally kill you as well based on the behaviour it might provoke. and Young's last kind of disciple, not disciple but secretary As Marie-Louise von France outlines and she wrote a problem called The Problem of the Pueriternus. I've got it in my bookshelf.

1970, this archetype is often characterised by visionary longing, spiritual idealism and a reluctance or inability to engage with the demands of ordinary life. Get it? This is what the girl's doing. In the woods, the girl retreats ever more deeply into her dreams of nature's mystery and musical revelation, neglecting her daily responsibilities and drawing away from human connection.

The forest becomes for her not merely a place of solace but a site of potential psychic dissolution, a mirror to the unconscious that is as seductive as it is dangerous now. Von Franz and Jung both warned that such immersion and numinous experience, if unbalanced by conscious effort and grounding, could result in the disintegration of the ego.

So what does Jung say? You know, this is a danger. What's his, as a doctor, what is his prescription? Well, he says, forget analysis. Forget mystical stuff. work, get involved in your garden, dig in the earth, chop wood, anchor yourself in, this the opposite it's all about opposites of this rarefied psychic experience by digging in the solid

thoughtless earth. I don't mean it in a nasty way, I mean it has no thought which is a good thing. So So in this story, she takes Jung's prescription, not by gardening, not by digging or building a wall, those would have been totally solid things to do if you're at risk of floating off into space, but by Bran, the great St Bernard.

who is, you know, Gran's an old dog, he's seen it all, he's not impressed by any of this, he's just a dog, you know, he licks you, he eats poo, probably, I'm sorry, but they do, if you don't stop them, you must stop them, and, um, You know, dogs just do embarrassing things. They just growl, but they're full of love as well, you know. They're real. They smell. They're real. And so her solution to this problem of flying away into space...

Es. the grounding of the Great Dane and I'm not saying Amius Northcote was a proto Jungian although he may have read some Jung to be fair at this by this time although a lot of Jung's work didn't come out till a bit later although some of it was but You see how it reflects? I mean remember I've got my Jungian sunglasses on so remember somebody says if you wear yellow glasses everything looks yellow. Snow looks yellow.

you know and it may be that I just wear these Jungian glasses all the time so I see Jungian stuff everywhere and I'm totally open to that. The other thing I was going to say which maybe I've got two more things to say one is the dog Bran Bran. So of course in in British Celtic myth, the Britonic, Bran is Bran the Blessed whose head was cut off. He's the great of it. It means crow. Kigvran is a raven, but Bran may have originally been raven.

Some of the continental Celts had names in Bran as well, you know, the Gauls and the Ligurians and people like that. Also in the Scottish Highlands, I remember my Gaelic teacher telling me this, so the two most common names for a dog in the Highlands of Scotland were Bran and Geelus, Geelus meaning faithful. Dyliss in miles actually. The name Dyliss means Vyfel.

So, there we are. So, you know, as a solution to this getting lost and dissolved in the archetypal world of the forest, you have to come back to the real world. And I hope from this she went off and she got a job.

And she started, you know, making cakes and meeting ordinary people. And maybe she became a teacher. I don't know. I just have that for her in my head. She became a village school mistress and was a fantastic teacher and inspired lots of people. Had a real... warmth towards the natural world and art and was real and really helped a lot of kids that's how I see her and the final thing I want to say is related as I was reading it I read a

a book called uh or western let me have a look i've got it here there's another book so um just talk amongst yourselves for a sec um I think it's called Western Mind Eastern Body can't find it oh anyway it was I can't remember who wrote it and I had it a minute ago I know why. I look in the wrong flesh.

Alright. Nope. I don't know what you're doing when I'm doing this. I should have done this before, shouldn't I? Eastern Body, Western Mind by Anodea Judith, right? So... She writes, she also wrote Bob Calder in Wheels of Life 1987, she talks about the chakras. Now, I'm not going to get into Hindu ideas of chakras, but Western kind of new ages have taken this idea of the chakras. She was always about chakras, always.

we don't get far without talking about chakras anyway so there are these wheels of energy that exist in the body so they have different ones from your root to your crown spaced up a line in your body okay right in different colours different characteristics my one at my throat

it's blue it's massive because I'm all about words but What Anna dear Judith says is many westerners have overdeveloped higher ones so from the ones to the speech and thought and imagination are massively overdeveloped and the root ones are to do with the earth real physical things are underdeveloped and you know you need to I'm going to tell you a slightly, I hope I don't offend people who are really into chakras, or chakras, means wheel in Sanskrit.

So some years ago I went to California and with my daughters and we were by Santa Monica Pier and there was a woman there and I maintain a healthy skepticism to everything I say to be honest and she said oh hello she said she didn't talk like that I said hello she said you know you're eight months behind your path and I'm like I must say she was sitting at a table selling

Tarot card readings, so you know, and I'm like, all right, all right, eight months, yeah, she said, yeah, I can see your chakras are unbalanced. and she may not have been wrong to be fair and she says I can do I can balance each chakra for $100 I might have been $200 it was quite expensive I'm alright thanks I'm good thank you at using the vernacular And she was like, I can do them all for 500. Yeah, but you know, I said, we're off to San Francisco tomorrow.

He says, do you know what? I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow. And I'm like, oh, here we go. So I said, okay, listen, you know, thanks ever so much. Oh, is that the time? I've got a bus to catch. And off I went. So and then of course Talking to Sheila about her chakra she sees them I don't see I'm just not don't see but I'm like okay Maybe I was a bit dismissive maybe I was a bit dismissive and actually if What Shaila says about my chakras is my speech ones, my thinking ones

Absolutely overdeveloped. I can't dig a wall. Dig a wall? I can't even say it. I'm the most impractical man in the world. I'm clumsy. I drop things. I smash things. I've got no practical skills. I can't do DIY. So, absolutely, I am in danger of being the little princess.

think I've got over it but there we are so anyway a massive meander probably nobody else would ever take you on that journey from that single story but I would like to say that everything I said was valid It may not be true and that's for you to judge but I believed it was true and I'm not actually just throwing these ideas and saying look you know you take it but I think they're interesting aren't they and that's the point

So I hope you enjoyed the ramble. If you did please like it or if you could comment on Apple or anywhere you listen to it. If you can actually leave a good review that really helps me actually. So thank you in advance.

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Everybody dies. Isn't that so? You tried. You locked drawer today, didn't you? Come back. What's this?