I’ve seen a lot of winters come and go. Indeed, I am so old that you might easily mistake me for another tree in the forest. I am grey, gaunt, and crooked as my staff.

But ignore me at your peril!

The huge, wild forest you are entering is full of ravenous beasts. How ravenous? If I were to cut your horse into tiny morsels and throw them to the monsters, there wouldn’t be one bit for each hundred of them.

Still want to enter the forest, eh? No? Good. Now listen and I’ll tell you how.

Old Forest Guardian in The Witch and Her Servants, Yellow Fairy Book. Picture by Gustav Doré.