The Summer Forest

Once upon a time, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough woke up in the summer forest. At first, there were worse places to be lost. She hid inside giant oaks with historians, read Tolkein and Shakespeare with wise women. A kind witch, Moira Hodgkinson, even cast a spell to wish her good luck in her quest to discover the joys and traditions of the summer forest.

But it wasn't all about the mythical Forest of Arden and the English Romantic idyll. Eleanor watched as that got chewed up, trees turned into ships, into fuel for the furnaces of the Industrial Revolution. So she met legendary fairy tale guru Jack Zipes, and heard his tales from the Black Forest in Germany, travelled back in time to Earth's primeval forests with their strange and leafless trees; and still found time to relax with a spot of Japanese forest bathing. Listen to the summer forest in all its cultural and ecological glory.

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough on the cultural and ecological glories of the summer forest.