If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise. They will be there. With their axes and hatchets, cutting and hacking. Destructive creatures! If you will insist on going there to play it is best that you look like one of their children. Now don’t make that face. I know it isn’t exactly comfortable. I’m sure you’d find living in a cage in the village, being fed rotten vegetables and poked with sticks like your cousin Willow far more uncomfortable.

Foolish boy. He would insist on going out undisguised to play with the village children. Oh yes, I know he was safe enough with the children. We do look rather endearing to them after all. But the parents are another matter altogether. Alien and strange, we are to them. Not quite animal, not quite human. They do not understand us. What they do not understand they fear, and they hate what they fear. That makes them dangerous. Not their fault, perhaps. They are stupid creatures. But never forget, they cannot be trusted. And not even their children are safe to be friends with.

Now, I want you to try it yourself. Well really, you should be able to do a simple transformation at your age. How do you expect to protect yourself if you can’t? this is honestly the last time. If I didn’t need you to gather elderberries for me today, I wouldn’t let you out at all.