Still, even as medieval societies viewed the forest as gloomy place, they also saw it as an apparently limitless source of wood and resources to be exploited. Read more: Highlights in the Black Forest For instance, medieval Freiburg had virtually no trees, although it is literally in in the Black Forest, says Schmidt. In contrast to today's cities, in which green spaces and trees are treasured, wild nature was not welcome to the settlements of the Middle Ages. The forest isn't even painted because it's 'black' - or uncivilized and inhospitable." "If you look at a painting from the Middle Ages, hostility toward the forest really jumps out. "The Black Forest is not called the Black Forest because it casts dark shadows," explains Uwe Schmidt, a professor of forest history at the University of Freiburg in southern Germany. The forest is home to wild creatures, and humans have long been wary of what might lurk there, say experts. But does that make it evil? Well, that depends on your perspective.
GERMANY BLACK FOREST MISSING PERSONS FULL
In that reading, the bleak forest is an unpredictable realm full of challenges that must be overcome. The linden tree, with its profusion of leaves and healing powers, was the only tree accepted in cities in medieval times Image: picture-alliance/blickwinkel/A. "But they overcome, the danger and emerge from the forest happy," he points out. "The witch is the personification of the danger that lurks in the forest," said Aschenbrand. There, they must contend with a cannibalistic witch, recaps Erik Aschenbrand, manager of the Reinhardswald park. In the tale of Hänsel and Gretel, for instance, the unfortunate siblings are abandoned in the forest by their parents. Read more: German grandma proves hit with YouTube bedtime tales What's important is the the message behind the stories, as well as their setting: a dark and sinister woods home to all kinds of danger. Whether a princess really slept for 100 years is immaterial. The Grimms simply wrote down the stories that had been part of an oral folk tradition for generations. Read more: What's lurking in the German forest? Read more: 10 Brothers Grimm fairy tales you should know In fact, it was around this erstwhile heavily-forested place that the Brothers Grimm collected many of their fairytales, helping to cement the forest's central place in the German imagination. According to German fairytales, a particular beauty slept here for 100 years before being awoken by her prince Image: picture alliance/dpa/F. And Rapunzel let down her long golden hair from a tower so her rescuer could clamber up. Near Reinhardswald, a courageous prince was said to have awoken sleeping beauty from her long slumber with true love's first kiss. The woodland is at the heart of a 600-kilometer (372-mile) route once home to magic mirrors, fairy godmothers, princesses, and goblins - if legends are to be believed. Few places in Germany are as brimming with tales of mythical beings as Reinhardswald.
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