The Forest of Looming Death was, as one might guess by the name alone, a dreary place.  To say the least.  Through it ran the Brook of Dashed Hopes, which was as bleak a brook as one could imagine, full of bony little inedible fish, which were the only creatures hardy enough to live there;  the brook was where the coal mine upstream dumped all the byproducts of its mining operation.  Since the fish were the only creatures living in the brook, they were cannibalistic by necessity.  Just beyond. . .