The Hollowing

Art by Karie-Ann Author

🌲 Why I Begin Again

There are places in the Royal Forest of Dean where the trees no longer speak.

Not because they’ve forgotten—but because no one’s listening.

I haven’t drawn a single guardian yet. Not because they aren’t watching—but because I needed to understand what they’re watching over. What they’ve survived. What they’re still mourning.

This is the beginning of my work. A mythic brand, yes—but not one built on fantasy. It’s built on memory. On real events. On the slow, quiet unraveling of the wild places I walk through every day.

The Hollowing is what I’ve named this grief. The fly-tipped mattresses where bluebells once bloomed. The ash trees dying of disease. The scorched bracken where wildfires passed. The silence where owls used to call.

It’s not metaphor. It’s not myth. It’s truth.

In 2024, the UK lost over 2,400 hectares of native woodland. Only 7% of what remains is considered ecologically healthy. The rest is fragmented, degraded, or quietly dying.

Ash dieback now affects over 80% of native ash trees. Wildfires—once rare—are increasing in frequency and intensity, fuelled by drought and neglect. Fly-tipping costs councils millions, but the deeper cost is memory. Every dumped fridge, every broken sofa, every plastic-wrapped mattress is a forgetting. A severing.

I walk these paths often—between the Wye and the Severn, through the Royal Forest of Dean. I’ve seen the brambles hacked back, the scorched earth where fire crept, the silence where birdsong used to rise. And I’ve felt something hollow in those spaces. Not just absence. Memory.

This lore isn’t fantasy. It’s a way of holding grief gently. Of naming what’s being lost without turning away. The Hollowing is not a political statement. It’s a truth felt in the bones of the land. And through my work, I try to give it shape—so others might feel it too.

The guardians will come later. But first, I need to tell the truth of what they’ll be born into.

🌫️ I. What Is the Hollowing?

The Hollowing is not a creature. It is a condition.

It does not roar or claw. It does not chase or bite. It seeps.

It begins in the quiet places—where the forest once sang with memory, where mammals once moved with purpose. It hollows out meaning, leaving behind beautiful forms with no soul. The trees still stand. The fox still watches. But the story is gone.

The Hollowing is the slow erosion of emotional resonance. It strips away lore and connection until all that remains is surface. It mimics life, but carries no memory. It is the aesthetic without the myth. The image without the guardian.

🦊 II. How the Hollowing Took Root

The Hollowing was born from forgetting—but unlike the Fraying, which unravels boundaries, the Hollowing replaces them with silence.

It began when the forest was first commodified—when beauty was extracted without reverence. When the mammals who once guarded the Realm were reduced to symbols, stripped of their lore.

It feeds on disconnection. On the flattening of story. On the idea that a fox is just a fox, and not a sentinel of dusk. That a deer is just a shape, and not a keeper of seasonal passage.

It grew stronger with every ash tree lost to disease. With every habitat cleared for convenience. With every wildfire left unnamed. It evolved as a shadow of reverence. It mimics the forest’s form, but not its soul.

🌲 III. How the Hollowing Destroys

The Hollowing does not destroy with fire or iron. It destroys with emptiness.

Its goal is not chaos—it is silence. It seeks a forest that looks alive but carries no memory. A realm where guardians forget their names. Where paths are walked without story. Where the mammals who once watched, warned, and welcomed become hollow-eyed echoes.

It wants to erase the emotional ecology of the Woodland Realm. To turn myth into marketing. To turn guardians into decoration.

It thrives in the places where tree diseases spread unchecked. Where wildfires scorch the undergrowth and no one mourns the loss. Where fly-tipping becomes routine. Where habitat destruction is called “development.”

🌍 IV. If the Hollowing Wins

If the Hollowing overtakes the forest, the Realm will become a shell. The mammals will remain—but they will no longer guard. The sigils will fade. The emotional rhythm of the land will fall silent.

And Earth will feel it.

Because the Woodland Realm is not separate—it is a mirror. When the Hollowing spreads in the Realm, it echoes in our world as:

• Emotional numbness
• Disconnection from nature
• Loss of seasonal awareness
• Wildlife commodified without meaning
• Aesthetic obsession without emotional depth

We see it in curated feeds that show foxes and deer as props, not presences. In landscapes stripped of story. In art that mimics nature but forgets its soul.

🐾 V. What the Guardians Must Do

The mammal guardians of the Woodland Realm—foxes, badgers, deer, hares—must resist the Hollowing not with force, but with misdirection.

They twist the paths. They bend the moss. They whisper sigils into the soil.

When the Hollowing approaches, they shift the trail beneath its feet. They guide reverent walkers deeper into the Realm, while hollow-hearted wanderers find themselves lost in fog.

Each guardian carries a memory. A story. Their task is to restore emotional resonance—to remind the forest of its soul.

🕯️ VI. Real-Life Lore: The Hollowing in Our World

In British folklore, mammals were never just animals. They were messengers, watchers, guides. The fox was the trickster and the sentinel. The hare was the moon’s companion. The deer was the seasonal bridge.

But in modern life, these beings are often hollowed—turned into motifs, mascots, or marketing tools. Their lore is stripped. Their emotional role forgotten.

The Hollowing is present in:

• Wildlife used as aesthetic without story
• Nature walks taken without reverence
• Seasonal shifts ignored or commodified
• Rituals replaced by routines
• Wildfires treated as anomalies, not omens
• Tree diseases left unnamed

It is the flattening of myth. The silencing of soul.

🔥 VII. Why the Hollowing Must Never Win

Because if it does, we lose more than the forest. We lose our emotional compass.

We lose the ability to walk with meaning. To see with reverence. To feel the presence of guardians in the dusk.

The Hollowing must never win—because the forest is not just a place. It is a story. A rhythm. A memory. And without it, we forget who we are.

🧙‍♀️ VIII. Collector Invitation: Restore the Soul of the Forest

Will you walk with the guardians?
Will you carry the sigil of dusk?
Will you help twist the path, bend the moss, and restore the soul of the Woodland Realm?

The Hollowing is real. But so is the resistance.