Ohio State is in the process of revising websites and program materials to accurately reflect compliance with the law. While this work occurs, language referencing protected class status or other activities prohibited by Ohio Senate Bill 1 may still appear in some places. However, all programs and activities are being administered in compliance with federal and state law.

Forest Tales

by Silvie Lang

Narrative researcher David E. Bynum (1978) develops a global pattern of oral tradition that focuses on the negotiation between two types of trees: the green, living tree and its dry, processed equivalent – wood as a building material. This negotiation of nature and culture, the implied imperative of a resource-conserving approach to raw materials, can be found in the earliest beginnings of literature, e.g., the Epic of Gilgamesh, through to recent manifestations of our narrative culture, e.g., J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1954/1955). The forest is not only the subject of the tales, but even becomes the material basis of the stories, as the tales start to be written down on wooden materials such as paper – thus demonstrating an astonishing agency of the forest (Latour 2007) in a human-plant network (Sternath, Lang, and Riess 2025). Storytelling in general, and literature as one form of it, reflect on the relationship of forests, humans and more-than-humans in various ways, often allegorically and metaphorically, creating vivid images. Comparative analyses of forest tales show the many ways in which storytelling and literature stage the forest as a demon (Bynum 1978), but they also show how humans can appear as demons or monsters in the forest (Lang and Sternath 2025). 

The forest is subject and material basis of literature at the same time. In German literature, the forest appears as an uncontrollable, threatening wilderness, as a place of the uncanny, but is also perceived as creating a sense of security and identity (Byrnes et al. 2024, 7). In the mythologisation of the forest and its inhabitants, care and carelessness towards and of the forest are negotiated and prove to be communicative and reciprocal, thereby following Donna Haraway’s concept of naturecultures: Considering nature and culture together, not as conflicting opponents (Haraway 2003, 11), but as deeply entangled in what she describes as becoming-with (Haraway 2016). Already the epic of Gilgamesh tells of Chuwawa, a forest demon and personification of the forest, that Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu try to kill to access the valuable woods of the cedars (Franke 2023). By making the forest a supernatural and more-than-human mythological figure, the text highlights the understanding of the forest as a living subject with whom humans interact in a constant negotiation of naturecultures. Ultimately, forest tales reveal that care between humans and forests is not unidirectional but reciprocal, negotiated through storytelling, and thus contribute to a deeper understanding of forest-human relations as co-constitutive. 

The depiction of the forest in German literature has changed historically and is always closely linked to its importance as an economic factor: forests were cleared for settlements, served as timber and firewood, were reforested around 1800 under the banner of sustainability, before dramatic deforestation threatened forest stands in the age of industrialisation (Byrnes et al. 2024, 7). Recently, the forest has been endangered by anthropogenic climate change and its consequences. All of these relationships can be echoed in forest tales. An understanding of the forest as a more-than-human entity was already reflected in ancient Germanic culture: Germanic gods were worshipped in cosmologically significant trees, sacred groves, and forests in general (9). The mythologisation of the forest reached its peak in the Romantic period (ibid.) under the catchphrase ‘Waldeinsamkeit’ (forest solitude) coined by Ludwig Tieck (8). The genre of the fairy tale in particular, which flourished in the nineteenth century and was now being written down from oral tradition, often revolved around the forest as a magical place. A reflection of the deep entanglement of naturecultures based on mythologisations is found in folklore, such as fairy tales and legends, in the form of more-than-human protagonists like the Hehmann (Petzoldt 2014, 94) or the wood maidens (Eichenseer 2019, 48). 

As forest tales not only reflect the human relationship to forests, but also explicitly negotiate care and carelessness, they are an important subject for the Environmental Humanities. They are also an essential part of Germanic Studies. In The Adventurous of Simplicius Simplicissimus (1669) by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, the forest is portrayed as a frightening, almost living being (28). It becomes a storyteller when Simplicius learns to read and write from a hermit in the woods (42). Later, Simplicius himself is seen as a demon in the forest (164). In the eighteenth century, folklore-inspired stories like Musäus’ Volksmärchen der Deutschen (1782–86) depict nature spirits like Rübezahl, who critically observe and sometimes punish humans. Beyond fiction, Juliane Koepcke’s memoir When I Fell from the Sky (2011) recounts her survival in the Peruvian jungle after a plane crash. Though others blamed the forest for the tragedy, she believes it saved her and now advocates for rainforest conservation, reflecting a deep, respectful bond with nature. 

Reference Works

  • Bynum, David E. 1978. The Dæmon in the Wood: A Study of Oral Narrative Patterns. Harvard University Press.
  • Byrnes, Deirdre, Tina-Karen Pusse, Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa, and Michaela Schrage-Früh.
  • 2024. “Einleitung.” In Der Deutsche Wald: Zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte eines Mythos, edited by Deirdre Byrnes, Tina-Karen Pusse, Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa, and Michaela Schrage-Früh. Königshausen & Neumann.
  • Eichenseer, Erika. 2019. Der singende Baum. Waldmärchen aus Bayern. volk.
  • Franke, Sabina. 2023. Das Gilgamesch-Epos. Philipp Reclam.
  • Grimmelshausen, Hans Jacob Christoffel von. 2009. Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus. Eichborn AG.
  • Haraway, Donna. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto. Prickly Paradigm Press.
  • Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble. Duke University Press.
  • Lang, Silvie, and Vanessa-Nadine Sternath. 2025. “Argumentationsstrategien in
  • Katastrophenmythen: Verantwortung und Verantwortungsbewusstsein im Gilgamesch-Epos und in Georg Wickrams Metamorphosen-Bearbeitung.” In Apokalypse und Apathie: Handlungs(un)fähigkeiten in der Klimakrise, edited by Martin Böhnert, Maria Hornisch, and Annika Rink. transcript.
  • Latour, Bruno. 2007. Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford University Press.
  • Petzoldt, Leander. 2014. Kleines Lexikon der Dämonen und Elementargeister. C. H. Beck.
  • Sternath, Vanessa-Nadine, Silvie Lang, and Christine Riess. 2025. Menschen-Pflanzen-Netzwerke. Vegetabile agency in der Klimakatastrophe. transcript.