Wisconsin Trees

Stephen S. is my friend in high school, and he is from Wisconsin. He was born and raised there, but moved to Taiwan for high school. He’s now back in Wisconsin for college.

Stephen told me a folklore that would pertained to a legend in Wisconsin. Stephen would hang out with his friend from a German class he took when he was a kid. One time when they were hiking up though a forest, his friend told him that if you stay in the forest for more than an hour, the trees will come alive and the tree spirits will start chasing or stalking you. And if you look back, you wouldn’t be able to see the trees chasing you. Out of curiosity, Stephen did look back once but didn’t see anything. He would always imagine that the spirt tree figures would be dark shadows.

Stephen’s friend from German class was the first one who told him about this legend, and Stephen assumed that his friend learned about this from his other friends, or from whoever lived near the forest. Stephen shared this particular folklore because of his remembrance of his friend who told him something scary about the forest. Growing up, Stephen thought that his friend was a “brat” for telling about this when they were young.

This legend revolves around the trees of the forest and their spirits. It also has a way to unlock the presence of the tree spirits. It’s also been told that no matter, you won’t know if it’s real, since if you look back the tree spirits will stop chasing you. This would make the truth value of this legend not really known. It could be true, but no one has really seen the tree spirits chasing them.

This legend could be true for all I know, but like I stated before, the way it’s told make it so the legend could always be possibly true. No one can ever know. I personally don’t believe it, but it may be true, I would never know. There could possibly be tree spirits who chases after people who stay in the forest for more than an hour, but I doubt it.