Brief-Form #48 : Demons, Ogres, Wraiths, Ghouls, and Other Halloween Forest Spectres!

I am pleased to add the 48th of my GBH Brief-Form Posts (Less than five minutes to read!) to my website. I get wordy with my routine Posts. I don’t want my enthusiasm for thoroughness and detail to discourage readers. So, I will occasionally publish these brief Posts.

Happy Halloween!

I wander (and wonder) in North Alabama’s forests during daylight hours. Even in full sunlight, I encounter spooky sights, sounds, and situations. Were I marauding the sylvan haunts in darkness, I might be more unsettled, deranged, and addled than I already am! Take a stroll with me among some of the weird forest demons, ogres, wraiths, and ghouls I’ve photographed since retiring to North Alabama.

I see an oaken dragon’s head — an eye, its ear, a smiling mouth, and a nostril. A friendly daytime image…but what visage materializes when we transition into deep dusk?

 

In the age of Harry Potter, a Whomping Chestnut Oak!

 

From my term as NC State University Vice Chancellor (2001-04), I see a red oak Wolfpack mascot!

 

A hickory-carved African tribal mask, its stern glance, forebodingly rigid brow, and flared nostril. Nothing amiable in that countenance!

 

A not-so-happy white oak’s wide mouth. How dare I trespass through his glen!

 

Reflecting the dark mood of the forest, one of Gary Larson’s best!

 

Trees can be unabashedly hostile, demonstrating their evil intent by devouring the human insult of posting metal signs. Beware!

 

A ram’s head awaits the unwary passer-by. Don’t bend over to tie that loose boot-lace!

 

This angry cycloptic black locust, glaring across the 200-year-old Mooresville Cemetery, sent a chill down my spine midday! There is no tolerance in that singular occular portal…malice prevails! My soul trembled.

 

I shivered standing within reach of the threatening smoke tree along the Green Mountain Halloween Forest Trail!

 

Fine literature expresses magic in words far more effectively than my photos and feeble narrative. Consider Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

There is nothing like the silence and loneliness of night to bring dark shadows over the brightest mind.

Startled by this bigfoot oak tree at Lake Guntersville State Park in 2018, I returned for a fresh photo on October 23, 2025, but could not find it. Where did it go? When might it reappear? Have any park guests been reported missing?

 

Grandson Sam and I risked life and limb under this creepy crawling oak carcass on Monte Sano State Park.

 

Most of these apparitions appeared when I’ve been alone. Would they have ventured forth were I sauntering with others? Perhaps being alone signals a confidence and power of which I was not aware. To be honest, I see far more when I wander alone. So much is hidden in plain sight. Companions can be a distraction…or at other times a visual catalyst. I embrace the wisdom in this poster. As a lifelong certifiable introvert, I accept the power and comfort of being alone!

 

I know that I am never truly alone in Nature. A mature white oak offered a branch stub stegosaurus head to greet me as I drifted past!

 

Among the strangest sights I’ve encountered are the bearded tupelo men in the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary tupelo swamp.

 

Wherever my life and living have taken me, I’ve cherished the beauty, magic, wonder, awe, and inspiration of woodland Nature. I find myself again and again.

 

Contrary to the dark Halloween theme, I prefer the mood and tone of Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Closing

 

I accept the challenge of distilling these Brief-Form Posts into a single distinct reflection, a task far more elusive than assembling a dozen pithy statements.

I cannot offer a quote more poignantly apropos than Washington Irving’s from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.

 

Nature’s special treats await our discovery, our understanding, and our interpretation!

 

Subscribe to my free weekly photo essays (like this one) at: http://eepurl.com/cKLJdL