Edward Hunt's Forest of Dean Miscellany

 

The Queen of Forests all, that West of Severne lie

Her broad and bushy top Deane holdeth up so high,

The lesser are not seen, she is so tall and large.

 

 

Micheal Drayton – 1563 - 1631

This site contains a personal selection of writing about the
Forest of Dean.

The selection embraces fact, fiction and fantasy; nature and supernature.

My aim is to focus on the interesting and the unusual.

Here you will find:  Samuel Pepys, Dennis Potter,
Catherine Drew, Michael Drayton, F. W. Harvey,
Arthur Bryant, Cyril Hart, John Byng, William Gilpin, D.H. Lawrence, William Cobbett, Nikolai Tolstoy,
Alfred, Lord Tennyson...

...and also King Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, Gawain,

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, The Mabinogion…  

 

To help your way around I have set up an alphabetical index on this page: 

Forest Index

 

The Forest of Dean is a place of natural beauty and poetry as well as mystery and magic. It is the home of beasts and fairies, men and elves. These elements constitute the warp and weft of Forest history. Nature and Supernature combine to create this multi-dimensional environment equalling in its diversity the environs of Old London Town.

Many have come here with a lust for land and domination but none could subdue the spirit of freedom and equality permeating the very air itself and coursing through the bodies of these unique and enchanted beings. They had come from far and near with grim faces and hard hearts but very soon the would-be invader was enchanted, tamed and absorbed and had become indistinguishable from his fellows, adding to and enhancing the whole.

Every atom of every molecule of every breath you take in the Forest has filled the lungs, or wafted through the hair, or blown the fires, or cooled the blood of a thousand Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Normans who have walked these trails; have lived their lives from birth to death under this green mantle; and drenched the earth with their tears, their sweat and their blood.

Within these woods many characters of legend and myth have breathed and walked. Many more have lived and died unknown: their deeds half-remembered or mingled in the fairy stories and rhymes that parents and grandparents tell their children or the tales that old men share in front of roaring fires to while away the long winter nights. But the stones and rocks never forget: they record every moment, every emotion and every passion, and hold it in their vibrating hearts forever.

Edward Hunt – Longhope - 2008