1) Grimm: An Enchanted Forest

In a lot of Grimms' tales we encounter an image of wood and tree. In the wood most of the enchanted things happen, heroes find their lost relatives, or magical things, or deserted houses, sometimes with strange inhabitants (witches/giants, etc.). That seems to be a remnant of a belief that wood is a house of forest gods, which was so widespread nearly on all the European territory. Although Christianity forbade those beliefs and they perished, they remained in old tales, which nobody took seriously.

This belief is expressed most straightforward in elf-tales, in which elves come from the forest and take people to the forest to give them back only if proper magic is performed or after a long time, which remind us of human sacrifices to the forest gods. Witches in the forlorn houses are more human-like representatives of cruel forest gods, who sometimes intend to eat the heroes (sacrifices again).

However, single trees, if worshiped properly, can help, as for example in the story of an almond-tree, which gave the woman a child. When the heroes encounter their lost relatives in the wood (sometimes in a shape of an animal, which point to the animism religion), it seems to reflect a belief that spirits of the dead also dwelt in forests after their death.

These tales also remind us of the initiation ceremony, which was held for boys in different cultures and which involved his spending some time in the forest alone to prove he is a grown-up man. That's why all the sons which "go to see the world" have to go through the woods in the Grimms' tales.

All in all, the images of the wood and the tree are important in Grimms' tales and can help us understand in what our ancestors believed.

Works cited:

1) Children's and Household Tales (Lucy Crane translation with Walter Crane illustrations), by Brothers Grimm

2) Morphology of the Folktale, by V. Propp