Thomas Hardy's Wessex: Yellowham Wood

Walking through the dark and eerie Yellowham Wood ('Yalbury Wood' in Hardy's fictional landscape) was an experience.

Not long before setting out on this year's short pilgrimage to Hardy country, I had read 'The Winters and the Palmleys', for me, the darkest part of  'A Few Crusted Characters' in Hardy's 'Life's Little Ironies' collection of short stories.  In this dark tale, the "little Palmley" boy was sent by Mrs Winter:

      "with a message to the next village one December day, much against his will.  It was getting
       dark  . . .  On his way back he had to pass through Yalbury Wood, and something came out from
       behind a tree and frightened him into fits.  The child was quite ruined by it; he became quite a
       drivelling idiot, and soon afterward died" (Thomas Hardy 'Life's Little Ironies' pages 163-164,
       Wordsworth Classics Edition)

While walking through Yellowham Wood, I recalled the episode above and imagined it occurring in a place like the one below:

Besides the above, Margaret Marande reveals that in 'Under the Greenwood Tree', 'Yalbury Wood' was owned by the Earl of Wessex, while Geoffrey Day, the "head gamekeeper, timber steward and general overlooker for this district lived in a cottage there with his wife and daughter" ('The Hardy Way' page 14).  Of course, Keeper's Cottage is the model for the Day cottage.

Marande also informs that in 'Far from the Madding Crowd', "the shepherd Gabriel Oak passed through Yalbury Wood looking for work", and, more ominously, that Hardy's friend, Hermann Lea, told of a "superstition of Yellowham Wood, which was supposed to be haunted by the 'Wild Man o'Yall'm' who fathered many of the 'love-children' born in nearby villages" ('The Hardy Way', pages 14 and 16).