Wolf Lichen, A Fable

Somewhere deep in the forest, a stand of trees grew very fast, and twisted in such a way that hunters and woodsmen were fearfully drawn to it. The wagon road that had passed through it was overgrown and abandoned, ancient trees overhead having turned to creaking husks with strange growths of long hanging green lichen. The trees surrounding it creaked and moaned so much when anyone was brave enough to enter that grove, that they could almost be said to be speaking. Whispers of old hatreds.. Few ventured far enough into the heart of the twisted forest to find the hatred's source. A tree that bore strange lanterns from another land. It had a strange and almost welcoming quality to its shape, and the lanterns seemed to sprout from it of their own will. In the dusk they flickered but never died, their glow swallowed up by the surrounding dark of the grove. What foreign hand had first set that lantern on that branch did not account for what could have been carried within its paper frame.. what strange spirit had been carried within it, unknown to them..

(I wanted to do a fairy tale image, and this is what came of it. Its pretty dark I guess.. but I had to finish it before I could move on to anything else! I grew up with this plant called wolf lichen on trees around my home.. and it always sounded so dark and evil. Apparently it was used for poison on traps back in the old world. I felt it needed a legend as well)