Every few months, we feel it appropriate to share posts that strike us as fitting to our name, Moss and Fog. Usually there are some good photographers sharing adventures in the woods, things that we think would fit our namesake.
Lucky for us, British photographer Neil Burnell has a beautiful series entitled Mystical, which showcases some truly rich and verdant trees. A gnarled and dramatic forest draped in thick moss, the trees emerge from fog, appearing much more like the set of a haunted fantasy movie than a place outside Devon, England.
However, this is a special place, indeed. Called Wood of the Wisemen, it’s considered a very haunted place, one feared for hundreds of years. Burnell has a great description:
Nestled on the eastern slopes of the West Dart river stands a wood of dwarf oak trees. Once you walk into the tangled web of trees you are transported into a mystical world of moss carpeted boulders, lichens of all descript, finger like oak branches, all engulfed in a wonderful smell of earth and age. For millennia this small, mystical, stunted woodland has been held in awe and for many fear.Tales of Druids, ghosts, the Devil and a host of other supernatural creatures abound, some dating back to the long lost ages before man could write. Many writers have described the wood as being “the most haunted place on Dartmoor”, others warn that every rocky crevice is filled with writhing adders who spawn their young amidst the moss and leaf strewn tree roots. Locals will never venture near once the sun begins it slow descent over the nearby granite outcrops for it is when the dark mantle of night draws tight that the heinous denizens of the wood stalk the moor in search of their human victims. So be afraid, very afraid, as the wagging finger of fate warns you to stay clear and risk not your mortal soul in the ‘Wood of the Wisemen’.
