A folk story

The bread and butter of it all

Today’s accompanying tune: “Mountain Sound” by Of Monsters and Men

Bread. A pinch of salt. A smear of home-churned butter.

This was the first I had ever heard of Leshy and all of his forms, of the offerings left at the entrance to the forest so as to win his favor and avoid his fury. The Slavic folklore practiced in the north woods of Michigan, and read on the page among the towering pines of the Sierra. Iliana Regan’s second book, Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir, is not only brilliantly executed and fascinatingly tactile, it is steeped deeply in the supernatural, the otherworldly, that which cannot be explained. And it makes sense. The memoir follows Regan’s spiral through anxiety, and the nuances of her upbringing which may have contributed to it, during the pandemic while she simultaneously opened a small bed-and-breakfast nestled among the logging stands in a national forest.

The Leshy tale immigrated with Regan’s relatives before settling in the Midwest. In a chapter where she traces the contours of her obsession with a certain type of mushroom, she ends up in Poland, walking the footsteps of generations before her. And, in what amounts to a near-fever dream, sees them walking along beside her in Michigan. But not before she places the end slices of bread, a pinch of salt, and a smear of butter on antique dishes just outside the line of trees that mark the beginning of true forest, of that in which Regan opts to disappear. The practice is, ostensibly, to satisfy the Leshy’s hunger, but also curries favor with the creature who is best known for leading people astray in dense woods as punishment for acting out “against the forest.” Playing loud music. Cutting down old-growth trees. Cutting mushrooms, however well-intentioned. Regan completes the ritual every time she enters, hoping the Leshy can help guide her to the mushrooms she seeks without leading her off a cliff. Though she knows her intention is good, she recognizes that her actions are what matters to the Leshy, and that only the utmost respect can undo the cuts of her mushroom knife. When she returns, mushrooms in hand, her offering is gone.

Leshy is only one of many folk figures tied to the forest. Cultures around the world have assigned faces, names, statures to beings that call the forest home, that act as the divine in a world out of human control. The forest, a living breathing entity in and of itself. The stomping grounds of the mystical, the fantastic. The leery and hungry and vicious. They resemble animals, trees, humans, dogs. They carry warnings. They can be benevolent, helpful even. What they all have in common is the understanding that, in a forest breeds mystery. And us humans have never been all that comfortable with the unknown, with mystery. So what do we do? Create folklore, create rituals and practices and commandments by which to explain the unexplained. To infuse a bit of comfort into the unknown, into that which eludes us, with the power of mysticism, the supernatural, that which lies beyond the scope of any imagination conjured up by human brains. In naming it, we let it go, leave it to the trees to interpret and generations later to practice. To accept that the possibilities are endless and the realm of our own understanding limited.

And that is the magic of the forest itself. That a place entirely earthbound is so interwoven with magic and mystique as to conjure up notions of the supernatural. The unexplained, brought about only by some of the oldest beings on this planet. The dichotomy extends — we know so much about forests, what lives in them, what forms them, but also so little about their lives as they extend far beyond the bounds of any one human’s lifespan. The oldest living tree is more than 4,000 years old, and only it knows what it has seen. We’ve only just solidified the theory that trees communicate with each other via fungus near their root systems. The forest doesn’t have to be supernatural to be magical. Step out, just once, and listen to the trees. To the needles and the wind. The squirrels and the birds. It’s enough to soften our own bark, to worm its way towards our heartwood. To feel rhythms of which we are only participants, never the conductor. To be a part of something so grand, so much bigger and older and more majestic than we could ever be in our own, solitary lives.

I often find myself in the forest when I’m trying to work through something in my mind. A decision about a job, or a trip. Sometimes bigger decisions, bigger events. Other times I simply need to process something that’s been on my mind, without the pressure of a decision looming in the shadows. I drive the hour to the base of the mountain, ride the tram up to the fancy restaurant and picnic area, and walk. The trees blunt the harshness of the desert, all that extra space consumed with pine boughs. It opens up the trails in my mind, those that become congested and sluggish when exposed to the direct light of the sun. There isn’t a logical explanation for it, at least not one that I’ve yet found. All I know is, the forest is a place where magic happens. A place worthy of respect, of kindness. A place that gives back exactly what you give it, and then some. It heals, it guides, it feeds. It inspires folklore around the world, so mystical that its effect is on those that live with it. All it asks, in return, is for a bit of bread. A pinch of salt. A smear of home-churned butter.

Here’s to those we’ve turned into folklore, in turn, what they’ve given back to us.

- Megan