The weather has kept me away from the Forest. It pains me, but tomorrow will do. I have a plan.
Today I speak of sanitisation and erasure, cartographic hand-wipes against perceived virus. I write of changing path names, what they once were and whispered of, and what they have become. Here are three, all local to me. The Forest once had a voice, a voice through tradition, a voice that named the paths, spoke of use. It spoke of the hunt.
On a map by René Stevens, a faint track appears as Chemin des Chevreuils, the Path of the Roe Deer. It is now Reebokweg. The buck alone remains. The hinds are forgotten. The males have taken over.
Nearby lies Chemin de l’Hallali, once speaking of the horn cry when the quarry was brought to bay. It is now Bremweg, Chemin des Genêts. A broom path. Clean, botanical, harmless. Swept clean.
Just to the south-east, Chemin des Brocards, a path shaped by the buck’s rut, becomes the path of the beautiful beech, named for the now fallen Hêtre Visart, a venerable tree. The brocards, the reeboks, were relocated without consent, in the name of tourism.
What is gained here?