The Mechanical Forest -

The Mechanical Forest is a journey amongst ancient trees and a dark folk tale of how the forest came to be.

over 200 hand inked and painted pages, featuring many original art works, accents of gold, coppers, bronze, stitched with metallic thread, and a sumptuous mix of light steampunk and natural elements.

Please follow the link for the youtube video with story narrative, or read on to see the story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8knx69QkHEo

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Come with me and I will tell you how the Forest came to be, lest we forget, and the curse should descend once more.

We have reminders still today, if we but listen when we walk in the Forest. The birds sing her song, the leaves tremble and tell her story, the wind is her breath and whispers her name. We must tread softly, that our feet leave no mark, and the trees may bear our presence for a time.

Long, long ago, before the Forest reached deep into the earth, when the trees were still young, and had not decided what they would become, before Oak and Beech and Ash had come to be, older in time than the memories of the oldest and most ancient trees, there was a girl. This girl was not like you and I, she was wild. She was alone, with nobody that she could call her family, and no place that was her home. But unlike you and I, this did not sadden her, she knew no different and she was content to wander all her life and sleep in the fields and under the stars. She came one day to this very place where we stand, but back in those days, the Forest looked very different. The trees were not like any she had seen before, they were wooden in part and other parts were metal. The fruits that they bore were not good to eat, but full of rust and poison. No birds lived among their branches, no animals sheltered under their roots and under their boughs. Their branches were mostly bare, and the few leaves that remained were metal and scratched and tore. The soil on which they stood was not soil at all, only rust and iron and crumbled to the touch. No green things grew on this ground, for no nourishment was found there. No butterfly flitted, no squirrel skipped and no fox made his den. The winds sang a different song, harsh and piercing, and they all called at once, and hurt the ears of any who heard them. Men had left this Forest long before. “There is nothing left for us here,” they said, there was no wood to build their homes or to make their fires. No food to eat, and the ground had become so bitter that they could not plant their food, so they had gone to toil in other lands.

The girl was at first frightened, but her curiosity made her walk further into the Forest because she desired to see how all this had come to be. She touched the trunks of the trees as she went by, but they too were of metal, and she felt only cold. Instead of sweet sap, the trees leaked only rust, and it came from their bark and trickled down amongst their roots and made orange pools on the forest floor. She had never seen another place like this. “What happened to you?” she asked aloud, but the trees made no answer. As she walked deeper, she asked again and louder, “what happened here?” The winds subsided, and there was only silence. “Wake up!” she cried, but the trees did not welcome her, nor wanted any reminder. They looked away, and closed up their hearts both to her, and to each other. At last the girl lay down amongst some rocks to sleep. The trees watched, and wished that she would leave them alone, they wanted her to go back, back to wherever she had come from.

The girl woke the next day and walked again. Deep, deep into the Forest she went, she felt cold and her legs and arms were scratched from the ground and the thorns. She searched for some sunlight, but it was only gloomy and dark. The longer she walked, the colder and more quiet it became, she begged the trees to speak, to tell her their story, for she wanted to do something to help them. She walked the whole day but found nothing. And now it was dark once more and there was no sign of food or water. She was becoming weak with hunger and thirst. The trees’ silence made her angry and she shouted as loud as she could, but her shouts echoed far away and clashed against the metal trees. She began to beat upon the trees with her hands and called at them to wake up, but she only hurt herself and her hands made no mark upon them. The trees did not break their silence, or their mood. Her sadness for the trees turned into sadness for herself, and she lay down and slept upon the rocks again that night.

On the third day she awoke and looked about again. No sunlight peeped in through the leaves, no morning dew, no birdsong. The trees watched her. She grew more tired, and her heart had grown heavy. She came at last to a clearing, here was the centre of the Forest, and she approached the largest tree, and speaking in a sad, hushed voice, she whispered “why are you like this? What happened to your green leaves and your hearts of living wood?” Then she also fell silent, and her tears fell to the floor, and dropped upon the gnarly roots. As she leaned her hands upon the trunk, she felt the tree slowly wake and stretch, and there was a little hope in her heart once more.

She looked around the clearing and all the trees were beginning to wake, “Cursed,” said the trees, all in their own voices. “We were cursed.” And then the largest tree sighed and groaned some more and bent down to see the girl. “Who are you, and why do you not let us forget?”

“How can you forget,” said she, “when your heart has grown to metal and it must ache so? My own heart feels like a rock in my chest, and I can hardly bear it.” The tree was quiet and looked at her and thought some more. It shifted and stirred and shook its boughs and spoke.

“Come child, and I will tell you the story of how the Mechanical Forest came to be.” The tree spoke long and slowly, and the girl listened. The curse had been brought down upon them for their pride, the tree explained. All the other trees slowly joined in to tell their own part of the tale. Each tree had thought it could live alone and without the others, for they had all grown strong and powerful. Some were the tallest, some were straightest, or smoothest. Some were older and could bear their own seed, and some were younger and more nimble and could dance in the wind. Others sprouted beautiful blossoms, and some yielded wonderful fruits. Some were wide and some were slender and some had the deepest roots but what they had not realised is that one could not be strong without the others. They shunned the sunshine and the wind, they cursed at the rain and grew proud in their own power and strength. “Behold my power,” they had cried, “I need not rain, nor birds, nor foxes scurrying at my roots, toadstools feeding on my bark, be gone all of you! I will grow ever stronger without you carrying off my seed and burrowing at my earth, be gone!” And the Forest had gone quiet all at once and a gloom had descended. The birds took flight, every one. The animals ran away, the insects and the spiders were all gone. The mushrooms shrivelled and died, the rain stopped falling, and the trees spread their branches and blocked out the sun, and all was still.

The biggest tree looked down again at the girl. “And in our folly, we did grow strong… for a time. And we were glad. We were given strong metal into out roots and hearts that were hard and could not be harmed.” Then it looked at the girl with a metal eye and wept a rusty tear. “You can see what we did,” it sighed. “And our hearts are strong, but they can still bear sadness, and they are heavy.” The girl stretched her arms around the tree and held tightly, and cried.

After some time, the girl got up and told the trees what must be done, and she said they must part their branches. The sun came in, dimly at first through the gloom, but they kept watching and as the day drew on it shone more brightly and began to warm the ground. The girl went back to the edges of the Forest and brought seeds. She fetched the animals and they followed her back. She scattered the seeds in the sunlight and called to the birds to return. They came to her and chattered and sat among the trees once more and told the sad song of the Forest, for they had not forgotten. Quail and pheasant began to scratch and dig at the earth to search for food. Deer, badgers, squirrels, wild boar, wolves and foxes and mice, all followed the girl and spread out into the Forest to make their homes. The girl was glad, and she danced in the clearing while the trees watched.

The days went by, and the girl waited for the Forest to come alive. One day she woke and searched again for sprouting seeds, but still none grew. She listened for the birds, and looked about for the animals. The trees groaned and sighed and the air was gloomy. She came again to the biggest tree and saw at her feet a fallen bird, there amongst the roots, whose heart had grown still, and which took no more breath. She held the creature in her hands and a great sadness came upon her. “We told you,” sighed the tree, “there is no hope, it is cursed.”

“No!” whispered the girl, and she wept bitterly. “There must be hope,” she cried “there must always be a little hope.” But in her heart she held none, and her tears kept falling. The trees did not want to hear her cry, they closed their eyes and their ears and shut up their hearts. The girl wept on and on and on. By night time she had not stopped and she lay beneath the biggest tree and her tears fell into the rusty pools and trickled into the earth. By morning the girl had not stopped crying, and the pools of rust had become clear water, and the water began to make puddles all around the clearing. Still the girl wept, all through the day, until the puddles made tiny streams that joined each other. She wept all through the night and in the morning the tiny streams had turned into bigger streams that flowed swiftly around the hills and dips of the clearing. Still she wept, till the streams grew full and stretched into the Forest in all directions. The trees began to drink and took deep breaths and stretched out their broad trunks. The animals, weak with thirst, came to drink. Still the girl wept. The streams became strong rivers that flowed for miles, and the trees gained strength and felt heavy weights lifted from them. The birds took shelter under the trees and drank from the rivers and streams. Still the girl wept. The ground became so heavy with water that it began to slide and shift about and the trees swayed from side to side. “Stop weeping!” cried the trees, but the girl did not. “Oh!” she cried, but wept more. The biggest tree reached down a bough and put it around the girl to shield her from the rushing waters. “Stop crying,” said the biggest tree. “Look what you have done.”

“I can’t,” said the girl. The tree lifted her up high for the ground was now covered under water. The girl wept on, and held fast to the tree. She leaned her face against its strong branches, and wrapped her arms around and held on tight. The tree in turn, held tightly to her, and covered more branches around her. Her tears kept falling, and from this great height they became rain. Her hair became tangled with the boughs and caught on the new buds and leaves that was beginning to grow. “Stop!” cried the tree and shook its boughs. The girl held tighter and could not. The Forest became covered with water all around, still it grew higher, still she wept and the rains fell. “Stop!” cried the trees.

“I don’t know how! What is happening?” she wailed, and as she opened her mouth to speak again, only the sound of thunder came out, and the voice of the wild girl was no more.

A great storm began. Winds blew, rains came down, thunder clapped and lightning lit up the sky. The rains fell for many days, the rivers swept away the poisons and the rust, and the trees drank deeply and filled themselves with good water. They reached out their branches to hold onto each other and they reached deep down beneath the ground with their roots and grasped and tangled with each other to stop being washed away. The smaller trees were held by the bigger ones and helped to stand firmly. The trees bowed and swayed but did not let go, the wind and the water tested them greatly, but their resolve was great and they held fast.

“Well done, well done,” whispered the wind as the storm died down at last. The waters went down, the animals returned, and the birds came out from hiding. All searched for the girl, but she could not be found. They looked towards the biggest tree in the clearing, where she had last lain. There was no girl. But the girl’s hair had sprouted leaves, a thousand times a thousand, and they all gazed at the tree’s beauty. “She is the Beech,” they said, “and she is our Mother.” And the tree’s metal heart was taken away.

This was the day that all the trees began, Weeping Willow, Oak, Chestnut, Alder, Holly, Silver Birch and all the others too. All were given their own work to do. But none are allowed to forget that they are joined, for instead of their green heart being returned to them, which is what the trees expected, every tree to this day is given the same heart, a heartwood, not living and green as they once had been, but of the hardest wood, and it sits in the deepest part of the tree. So that it can still be felt, just a little; so that what they had done would not be wholly forgotten. And the trees must bear this, for that was the price.

Listen carefully, the birds still sing her song, the leaves tremble and tell her story, the wind is her breath and whispers her name. And do you see that Autumn waits just around the corner? She is our reminder, crouching by the failing summer she waits, that she may paint her rusted marks of red, orange and brown. And when she brings the storms, her anger is churned up again, and the wailing winds are her voice, she tells the story again and again, that we may never forget.