In this week’s reading in Chapter 1, “The Great Old Hunter,” the author showed readers from the start of the story that this was a natural world being depicted as both menacing and awe-inspiring. Wolves, foxes, and wildcats stalk on the borders of human life, threatening children and livestock: “God help any child left playing on the doorstep, forgotten of an evening. On winter nights, in times of famine, packs ran through the streets, howling under the cold moon,” (11). Here, nature is not romanticized but is read as a force of hunger and violence that is used for conflict in fragile, weak towns. The “howling” wolves and the “diabolic” rustling of packs are described with words that border almost the supernatural, especially with the mention of the smell of sulphur, evoking literal Hell itself. The type of language that is used shows how the imagination of medieval people is often combined with the physical dangers of the environment, with moral and spiritual threats.

Yet, the forest and its creatures are not merely destructive. These animals also become the proving ground for, I suppose we can call it, “human greatness.” The narrator states that “evil reigned only if heroes failed to confront its dangers. It seemed that the one existed to give rise to the other, for humans do not show their mettle if left to themselves,” (12). In other words, the danger of nature is necessary because it brings out the courage, heroism, and even piety in humans. Aimery’s hunts are not seen as a simple sport but also as acts that extend human power into the world and reaffirm that divine order. When Aimery slays a boar, that isn’t a victory over an animal, but it’s a symbolic triumph over the Antichrist. Hunting becomes this sacred labor, an almost ritualized confrontation with the wild that we can see both disciplines nature and sanctifies humanity.

Overall, this passage suggests to us that in Aimery’s world, human identity comes from its relationship with the natural world–a world that constantly threatens, tempts, and tests humans, but also gives us opportunities for glory and grace. To live near the forest is to live near both the Devil and God, to be reminded that danger and sanctity often come from the same dark woods.