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Beneath the green overhanging hedge below the grey overhanging sky, a wood spirit appeared. Apart from the breeze which pestered in treetops, all else was still. It too was still. There, on the narrow clay path at field's edge, it had crossed from its existence inside trees into the light, but had brought a darkness with it. Its small but powerful body was black: not the glossy black of crows stalking through the grass, or the iridescent black of starlings on the fence wire, nor the soft, thick black of the horned lamb lying under a chestnut tree, but a more ruggedly lustrous sort of black, like old bikers' leathers.
The dryad, wood spirit, was a lesser stag beetle, related to that antler-headed Cernunnos of beetles but smaller and darker. It did not deserve a "lesser" name. At 25mm long and 10mm wide it was a big beetle with formidable mandibles like spiky daggers, serving a purpose driven by that squarish, thick-set head with eyes far apart and knobbly antennae. Its shield-shaped thorax was pitted like tooled leather and its elytra wing cases were closed over powerful wings. I remembered the first time I saw one many years ago; the thrill returned when what I knew connected with what I saw.
The lesser stag beetle, Dorcus parallelipipedus, would have spent three or four years as a fat white orange-headed C-shaped grub, gnawing through rotten ash, beech or apple wood. The larva would have pupated in the stump and emerged on the threshold of summer to find a mate. Now this wonderful creature would survive on raindrops and plant juices, flying at night, disorientated by our world to become an alien thing crashing into garden lights, trying to find the threads of existence that tie the trees to their ancient spirits.
