Many of these legends live on when told to young and old gathered around camp fires. Although these legends are told to temporarily scare those gathered, there are people that actually believe some stories, such as those about Big Foot and the wendigo.
Wendigos are the evil man-eating giants of many tribes’ mythology, in Northern United States and Canada. Wendigos play the roles of monsters and bogeymen in some legends; in others, the Chippewa people who commit sins (especially selfishness, gluttony, or cannibalism) are turned into Wendigos as punishment. The wendigo’s appearance is described as a huge, monstrous and either made of (or) coated in ice; however, the human it once was is still frozen inside the monster, where its heart should be, and must be killed to defeat the wendigo. Although in a few legends, a human has been successfully rescued from the heart of a wendigo, the only escape for a person possessed by a wendigo spirit, is death.
We have many folklore legends about things in nature, and one is a tree spirit, which would appear when someone attempted to chop a tree down.
The tree spirit says, "Leave these woods and never return." If the logger doesn’t leave immediately, the tree spirit proceeds to attack with melee: however, if the logger runs away, the tree spirit disappears.
As with all fables tree spirits are supposedly visible to those with
psychic awareness. They appear in varying forms, depending on the type of tree they reside within. The tree spirit of a willow tree could appear as a tall, willowy woman; while a gnarled old tree could take the form of a dwarf. Tree spirits are not entirely bound to their tree and can venture a short distance away. Legends tell of folk becoming unsettled in forests at night because of the tree spirits, stirring and walking about
the woods
Now, to encounter a tree spirit one must rely heavily on their imagination. On my many walks in the woods, I have often encountered tree spirits. Tree spirits are ghostly, often seen only out of the corner of the eye, in a darkened wood, or a flash of sunlight through the forest canopy.
One such encounter I had was with a mean looking dragon. It was in the fall, while on foot patrol, when I encountered this monster. At first, I couldn’t make out what it was; however, after looking through binoculars, I saw that the dead log certainly did appear as a dragon.
Another time, I encountered a walrus tree, and on closer examination, I discovered that the walrus tree was a tree that had grown around a metal sign. I have often seen a tree with the outline of a face looking directly at me. On one foggy morning, I even noticed a tree that appeared as a dinosaur.
An Estonian legend goes something like this: In the early days of earth, not long after the trees were created and humans were forced to leave paradise to work, a man went out to the forest to cut wood. The first tree he came to was a pine tree. But as soon as the man lifted the axe he heard a voice cry out, “Don’t strike me. Can’t you see the sticky tears that are already coming out of my body? If you hit me, it will bring bad luck.”
Since the man did see the sticky sap coming from the several cuts in the tree trunk, he moved on. This time he came to a spruce tree and again raised his axe only to have the spruce tree cry out, “Don’t cut me down, my wood is twisted and knotty.” The man moved on until he came to an alder tree. When he raised his axe, the alder tree cried out, “If you cut me, blood runs from my heart and it will stain your wood and your axe blood red.”
The man then called out to God and asked how he was to get wood to build a fire and a shelter since every tree cries out and pleads that I not cut them down.
God took pity on the man and said that from hence forth no tree will talk back or contradict you. The man went back to the forest and this time no tree protested. The trees were not happy about this but dared not complain to God, so instead they began to whisper to each other every time a man entered the forest.
While walking in the woods and you hear the wind blowing through the trees, perhaps you are hearing the trees softly whispering to each other.