The forest is a theater of strange beings, friendly and unfriendly. What are those creatures crawling around underneath the elder tree? It is the old one and her troop of mandrakes, woodruffs, goblins, and wights? Are these ministering angels or threatening demons? The friendly and unfriendly dance merrily beneath the witches’ weed; they smoke devil’s tobacco and light up the underworld with the magic sparks of their druid’s dust. Plant spirits appear in visionary consciousness as anthropomorphic beings that can speak with anyone, in any language. You need only ask—talk to them—and they will reveal the secrets of the normally invisible natural world to those eager for the knowledge. The shamanic world laughs and sings.
