The protagonists of such stories venture into the forest with warnings ringing in their ears, told to stay on the path, you know how the story goes and what befalls them when they inevitably leave the path behind. The forests are full of monsters; witches who wait to feast upon the flesh of fattened babes or wolves that gobble up grannies. But not all folk stories pitch the forest as places filled with monsters. The forest is still a place to be wary but instead of monsters, ghouls and ghosts, there is instead magic.

Animism is not about the projection of consciousness or agency onto non-human things, but about respect and reciprocity within a more-than-human community that transcends the subject-object dichotomy.