Nyctohylophobia

Nyctohylophobia is a fear of forests and woods at night. This is based on an irrational view that forests at night are full of evil dangers, ghosts, monsters, predators and maniacs. The truth is, maybe this is because of an earliest childhood memory, or an eposure to night forests on TV, in horror films that associate night forests as sinister. Also the truth is, it is not quite true.

While forests are dwellings for wildlife and can be very exciting adventures to be camping in, putting this aside, forests are also known to be unsafe, hiding places for things that are dangerous and mysterious.

Nocturnal forests get filled with nocturnal creatures, making eerie sounds that chill most people. But forests and woodlands are also, just like houses, haunted. Once upon a time, old roads and paths went through a wood and forest, often used by travellers, riders on horseback, stage coaches, ect. These passages don't exist anymore. There are ruins of hamlets and villages found buried in English woodlands. These places haven't been lived in for centuries. Yet the souls of these people and their activities left a paranormal stamp.

Many individual forests and woods are quite recent, planted within the last few hundred years, growing over ancient relics and dwellings. Trees are forests are haunted even because in times past, people were hung from branches and left to rot and get eaten by carrion. Battles took place in areas now wooded. There are also burial mounds, old graves and plague pits littered deep under forest growth. 

It's obvious why such places are haunted. Besides the dead, forests are also places of unknown creatures and monsters, such as Bigfoot, winged people and werewolves. Trees themselves have been considered nasty and malevolent, but often these bad living trees are much confined to folklore and fairytales. However, spirits have been seen in trees and some particular wood from a single tree infected by poison. It is sad that a lot of plants have been cut down because of diseases and it's not proven if anything paranormal was behind that. What is certain is that malicious entities that dwell in trees taint them, as they contaminate rooms and houses and objetcs.

Beside the hocus pocus, there is a lost wisdom of trees. People fear what they don't understand. Trees provide healing properties and food, fresh air and comfort. Trees are living things, and I know that trees have a beating heart. The fear of trees may just be a phobia, and yet people don't like trees anyway because they lack any knowledge and have no appreciation for life. Monster trees and evil forests indeed.

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Haunted trees and forests