Enchanted forest

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"Genoveva in the Forest Seclusion" by Adrian Ludwig Richter -- a refuge, and a magical deer

For other uses, see Enchanted Forest (disambiguation).

In literature, an enchanted forest is a forest under, or containing, enchantments.

The forest as a place of magic and danger is found among folklore: a forest is a location beyond which people normally travel, where strange things might occur, and strange people might live, the home of monsters and witches. Peasants who seldom if ever traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre could live a hour away. Hence, in fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel found a cannibalistic witch in the forest; Vasilissa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga herself; Molly Whuppie and her sisters, a giant. It was in a forest that the king of The Grateful Prince lost his way, and rashly promised his child for aid, and where the heroines 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.

Even in folklore, forests can also be places of magical refuge. Snow White found refuge with dwarfs from her stepmother, The Girl Without Hands found a hut to stay in when she had been slandered to her husband, and Genevieve of Brabant found not only a refuge from slander but a doe magically came to her aid. Even Brother and Sister hid in the forest after their stepmother turned the brother into a deer.

Gustave Doré’s illustration to Orlando Furioso: a knight and his men see a knight and lady approach in the forest

The figure of an enchanted forest was taken up into chivalric romances ; the knight-errant would wander in a trackless forest in search of adventure. As in the fairy tales, he could easily find marvels that would be disbelieved closer to home. Guillaume de Palerme hid there with the princess he loved, and found a werewolf who would aid him. In Valentine and Orson, Valentine is aided by a wild man of the woods who proves to be his long-lost brother. Into the Rennaissance, both Orlando Furioso and The Faerie Queene had knight-errants who traveled in the woods.

While these works were being written, expanding geographical knowledge, and the decrease of woodland for farmland, meant the decrease of forests that could be presumed magical. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare wrote of a forest that was enchanted specificially by the presence of Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen..

The forest is often filled with magical animals, plants, maybe even magical rocks and creeks. Often there will be elves, dwarves, and other mythical creatures that may or may not have been made up by the author on the spot, and trees that talk or with branches that will push people off there horses, and thorny bushes which will open to let people in but close and leace people stuck inside, and other plants that move, or turn into animals at night, or the like. Perhaps there will even be creeks which will turn unwary travelers into frogs if drunk from, and maybe sorcerers live somewhere in the depths of the forest.