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In so many of the stories, the hedge is a rite of passage. The only way through is to defeat it, and you have to do it alone.
It’s more evocative than some blunt wall; I suppose this makes sense. Really, if you must throw up a metaphor, why not something as beautiful as it is terrible — a dense, growing mass, something green and dark, with a will of its own? Why not make it a kingdom unto itself, without beginning or end?
But there’s something on the other side of it that you desire. You can’t forget. Obviously you’re supposed to make it through; the tale exists for this purpose. Valor or love or lust will simply have to conquer the vines, even if you conjured them yourself, because that’s how the story is supposed to end.
There are thorns. You’re going to bleed if you come near.
Once you start to hack your way in, the laws inside aren’t really so foreign. When there isn’t much light, one way or another, you figure out how to get by. And maybe you decide the dark suits you; maybe you’ll stay a while, there among the voles and fungi.
Will you turn your horse away and ride on?
Will you rest your weary head on the ground and sleep a hundred years?
Or will you make it through to the other side?
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