When I was a young, impressionable child, my parents decided that relocating me to a small, isolated island was not punishment enough. They then seized the costly opportunity to send me to the Chinook Waldorf School, whose "earthy" philosophies have more than once caused redneck farmer types to accuse them of being a cult. I am serious here.
This fine school discouraged reading until the third grade or so, and instead focused on producing misguided, illiterate children who saw wood srpites lurking around every corner. Chanting and pounding sticks together were also part of the curriculum. The general public regarded the "Chinokees" with healthy distrust, and branded them as "tree-hugging hippies gone wrong." Alas, my parents decided this would be a good place to send me.
However, when I was encouraged to believe in woodland faeries that I could see no conclusive evidence of, my paranoid instincts took over, and I refused. I was then told that in this school, we believed in fairies and gnomes and mother earth and didn't cause trouble. "Okay," I replied, "there are mythical and supernatural creatures in the woods. Got it."
So I proceeded to tell the young children that a witch queen and her evil minions inhabited the woods, and liked to feast on young children. Panic ensued, and several students claimed to have seen the witch queen in the past. No one would go near the woods. When the teacher inquired as to the cause of this sudden and widespread fear, they were told that a child-eating witch was loose in the woods.
This made the teacher mad. "There is NO witch queen. Hear me? None! There is NOTHING in the woods!" she snapped in exasperation.
"Not even fairies?"
I queried.
Babes in the Woods