Precinct the Second: The Scrimshaw Wood
In which is described:
the difference between "Forest" and "wood," the first being wild and the second domestic
a history of how the wild forest became a semidomesticated wood
various denizens of that strange place
an explanation of the appearance of copious glitter.
The roots of the Labyrinth go deep, deep, down into the very foundations of the Underground. The stone corridors and brick-and-mortar reinforcements of the Catacomb Way stop at a distance to the East; here the winding tunnels and passages are stopped up by the roots of the Scrimshaw Wood. In their confined spaces, these trees speak to each other, and their kin.
Let no one doubt, the trees have language, and are more than conversant with the nuances of human speech.
But the trees of the Scrimshaw Wood are not native to the Labyrinth--it could be argued that NOTHING is native to the Labyrinth--they first had their beginnings in the world of men.
A few short years after William the Conqueror came to rule the isles to the west, changing the people, the language, and the landscape forever, one of the new men, speaking en francais and jealous of his own vainglory, walked out to inspect his wood.
Sir Walter Scott has recorded for us the difference in meaning between "forest" and "wood" in his novel Ivanhoe: When a conquering nation comes to a new place, things which had native names in a language which gave honor to those creatures are switched to words which hint instead at the potential profit they may provide: thus deer becomes "venison" and mountain becomes "stone" and land becomes "field acerage" and forest becomes "wood."
A forest is a mystery, a labyrinth in and of itself. A wood is a place where trees are harvested.
Paying no attention to the mysteries of the forest, this newlymade nobleman was more interested in the profit that might be provided from them. There was one tree in particular he'd heard of, straight and true, a solid piece of pedunculate English Oak, never coppiced. This tree was rumored to be of indecipherable age, perhaps a young sapling even when Christ himself walked the world in mortal form.
He was a bit in awe of it, this tree which was a great thing in and of itself. The trunk was too wide for three men to circle arms around, and the topmost leaves seemed to scrape the ceiling of the heavens. And there around it, its brother trees, near equal as great and tall. Truly what a sight! But in a moment the impressiveness of the forest itself was overcome with concupiscent greed. What was the forest compared to the glory of ships and castles which could be built out of solid English timber, not to mention the yellow gold in which he would be paid.
There was a man in the woods, all dressed in springtime colors: the black earth, the gray lichen, the delicate translucent blues of the early flowers. The style of his dress, if not the colors, marked him out as one of high rank, and a Norman. He bowed when the nobleman saw him, then resumed his former attitude, standing on one foot, letting the weight of the great tree sustain him.
The specifics of their conversation then come down to this: the man in the forest asked that the trees not be cut down, for it was a special place, for dancing and trysting and celebration. And the nobleman wasn't interested in such things. "For," as it is recorded he said, "These trees are on my land and I may dispense with them in any way I deem fit."
"And if they were not on your land?"
The nobleman acknowledged that such would be a different matter but was in any case immaterial to the discussion.
They parted courteously.
At twilight, the in-between time, the trees had a susurrating conversation of leaves and reflected light. The stranger in the woods, the uncrowned King, was also there.
"We will die," said the trysting tree, with a great degree of solemn sorrow. "Seven hundred and sixty-two rings have I, and that is a ripe and good age. But my brother trees, and our sons, they have not so many. I do not wish to live without them."
The siblings and offspring touched, gently, branchtips to branchtips, sighing sadly at the way of things.
"Need it be so?" asked one of the younger oaks, two hundred and forty-seven rings old. "Surely the uncrowned King has some remedy for our misfortune."
Sitting on a boulder, which itself was sitting cradled in the roots of the trees deep under the earth, the uncrowned King thought before he spoke.
"Down in the Underground, there is a land serene," he said. "You might live there, live without the sunlight, but also live without the fear of men. I could show you the way."
"We would be highly obligated."
"And you would need to prepare for a limitless exile. As I said, there is no sunlight."
More whispered sighs of dismay from the listening trees. Live without the sunlight? Exile forever?
"And us, don't forget us," grumbled the mosses and lichens and fungus and ferns, clustered roundabout the skirts of the trees. "You must take us with you, we will die without you." And they suckled close to the trees for comfort.
The eldest tree felt down in his roots that this was a perilous but favorable idea. "Do we not speak the language of air and light? I say we beckon the light to us. Where we are, it will be, even if it is not, strictly speaking, the light of the sun. I am willing to go."
This was very bravely spoken. Trees do not travel. They dance and speak, but long journeys are rarely made after their seeds sprout. Oak trees in particular are homebodies.
But they are also sovereigns, governing themselves and their environs with great care. Each tree is a King, but usually a king among equals. Every tree in the trysting grove made its decision. Every tree decided the adventure would be taken.
If the nobleman had come to his woods during the fortnight which followed, he would have seen a particularly uncanny sight. Oak trees in spring put forth strange heavy fruit, orbs which glowed with the golden light of the sun. At the close of the second week, the fruit burst in a shower of sunlight sparks, dousing the trees with infinitesimal shards. Then the trees themselves burst, moving in and upon themselves, turning themselves inside out, disappearing with soft percussive pops.
A week after that, the nobleman returned to find that his wood was now only a slaggy claypit, a cavity in the surface of the forest. He was first enraged, then perplexed, then finally accepting of his loss.
The bark of the trees in the Scrimshaw Wood is coated with a thick cracked resin, giving each tree the appearance of being coated in slime or glitter, depending on the light. This resin has been traced through in ancient days by the bodies of snails and sundry arboreal creatures, giving the woods the appearance of having been written upon in some eldritch speech. They are among the first of the Labyrinth's populations, and are exceedingly boastful of their powers and properties. The trees of the Scrimshaw Wood claim that the light which comes within the Labyrinth comes at their call, and disappears when night is needful. It is possible that the trees, ancient creatures all, are more than a little senile in their old age because day and night are not regular in the Underground.
Every tree has the gift of language.
In the winter, the Scrimshaw Wood sends up messages to their daughter trees in the world above. And those trees there, in autumn, send down down love letters written in the skeletal skeins of their discarded leaves. Sometimes the King still walks there, especially at dusk. He is no longer uncrowned, but the trees of the Scrimshaw Wood love him no less for that.
