The Hollowing

Art by Karie-Ann Cooper Author

A mythic exploration of The Hollowing—the creeping unravelling that threatens the Woodland Realm. Discover how the Four Compass Foxes guard the forest

🌑 The Hollowing

There are dangers the Woodland Realm speaks of only in hushed wind and dusk‑light.
Dangers that do not roar or strike, but creep.

The forest has a name for this slow undoing —
a name older than Far Hearkening Rock, older than the first fox to walk the ridges.

That name is The Hollowing.

It is not a monster.
It is not a storm.
It is the thinning of meaning — the quiet unravelling of the forest’s memory.

Tree disease.
Forest fires.
Fly tipping.
Habitat destruction.
And every careless act that forgets the forest is alive.

The Hollowing does not arrive with thunder.
It arrives with forgetting.

And at the western edge of the Woodland Realm, one fox has already stepped forward to meet it.

🌘 What the Hollowing Is

The Hollowing is the slow, creeping badness that seeps into the Realm when the balance falters.

It is the rot that blackens bark from the inside out.
The spark that becomes a blaze.
The rubbish that poisons soil and chokes pathways.
The machines that flatten hedgerows and silence birdsong.
The human forgetting that treats the wild as disposable.

The Hollowing does not strike.
It seeps.
It softens.
It tempts.
It unthreads.

It is the quiet undoing of place, purpose, and memory.

And the forest feels it long before humans do.

🌒 The Western Edge — Where the Hollowing First Touches

Beneath the dusk‑thick canopy and wind‑worn ridges of the Forest of Dean, the Hollowing presses hardest.
It gathers at boundaries — places where paths shift, where memory thins, where the land exhales at twilight.

Far Hearkening Rock stands there, older than kings, older than roads.
A listening stone.
A warning stone.

It is here that the Hollowing first tries to seep through.

But it is also here that the first Guardian stands.

🦊 The Twilight Gatekeeper — First Sentinel Against the Hollowing

He walks the western edge not as a wanderer, but as the Twilight Gatekeeper.

His paws do not merely tread paths; they trace thresholds.
His ember‑lit eyes hold the last flicker of memory before night takes hold.

He does not dwell in a den.
He inhabits a boundary.

When the Hollowing creeps in — soft, tempting, unthreading — the Gatekeeper resists.

He shifts the forest.
Paths twist.
Moss thickens.
Trees lean close.

Those who come with harm forget why they came.
Those who come gently are met by lantern orbs — soft lights flickering in time with the forest’s breath.

He does not speak.
He remembers.

He is the first fox revealed.
The first to stand against the Hollowing’s creep.

🧭 The Hollowing Spreads — And the Gatekeeper Cannot Stand Alone

The Hollowing does not stop at the western edge.

It creeps northward, softening stone and snow.
It creeps eastward, hushing meaning beneath mist.
It creeps southward, twisting trails toward ruin.

The Twilight Gatekeeper feels it in the roots beneath his paws.
He knows the Realm will need more than one fox to hold the line.

He listens.
He waits.
He watches the edges darken.

And when the time comes, he will call the others.

Their names are already whispered in the undergrowth:

• Watcher of the Misty Veil — who walks the eastern hush
• Silent Ember — who guards the snowbound north
• Dusk Dweller — who waits in the heathered south

They are not yet revealed.
Not yet summoned.
Not yet standing in the open.

But the Hollowing grows bolder.
And the Gatekeeper knows the Realm will need the Compass Four.

🌲 The Badness of the Hollowing — Why It Matters Now

The Hollowing is mythic — but it is also real.

Tree disease spreads through ancient woods.
Forest fires scorch the undergrowth.
Fly tipping poisons soil and stream.
Habitat destruction tears apart the homes of bird, beast, and spirit.

The Woodland Realm is a mirror held up to the real Forest of Dean —
a reminder that the wild is fragile,
and that guardianship is not only a story,
but a responsibility.

The Hollowing is what happens when we forget the forest is alive.
The Gatekeeper is what happens when we remember.

🌙 The Gatekeeper’s Vigil

The Hollowing creeps.
The forest shifts.
The dusk deepens.

And at the western edge, the Twilight Gatekeeper walks his boundary — ember‑eyed, silent, steadfast.

He knows the Hollowing will come again.
He knows it will try to seep through every edge of the Realm.
He knows he cannot hold it alone.

But until the others are called —
until the Misty Veil stirs,
until the Snowbound Edge awakens,
until the Southern Threshold listens —

he walks deeper.

The forest remembers.
So does he.

Categories: : folk and lore, fox, Hollowing