There is something of the night about forests. Even at the height of summer, even under the midday sun, they are places of murk and mystery, blotting out the light with a mille-feuille of foliage. Even the most regimented spruce plantation has its shadows and its secrets. At the heart of every forest is a darkness that bides its time.
And as the sun goes down, after that lovely hour of slanting golden light, this dark spirit reclaims its own, rolling out across bracken and brambles towards its still-grey borders. The wood is at its woodiest.
If you are lucky enough to live surrounded by forest – as I once was – you feel it recede and fade at sunrise, only to creep back as night falls, a tide retaking the beach.
The last crow heads to its roost, the first bats unfold their wings, and beneath them the beasts that have hidden all day emerge to feast, fight and fornicate. All around you are squeaks and rustles, grunts and barks, cries of terror and of lust.
On your first night, you may be tempted to rush back indoors and shoot the bolts. But keep calm – that crashing through the undergrowth is probably just a deer. That screaming is almost certainly foxes.
Try not to think of The Blair Witch Project, or JRR Tolkien's Mirkwood. Nyctohylophobia – the fear of forests at night – is what is known as a "learned phobia".
"We learn to fear forests because of movies [and books] that generally involve some marauding killer or wild animal that stalks victims," says the appropriately named Fear of Stuff website. "We can also learn this fear when playing as children and discovering there are far too many hiding places and too many opportunities for playmates to jump out and frighten us."
But there are no giant spiders waiting to wrap you in their silk. It's two and a half centuries since anyone in Britain had to worry about wolves.
By all means take a torch, but try not to use it. Yes, a sweep of its beam will reveal dozens of watching eyes, but the spell will break and you'll wreck your night vision. The same goes for checking your mobile.
On all but the darkest nights, it's amazing what you can see once your eyes adjust. Wait quietly and patiently where the canopy is thinnest – at the forest's edge, in a clearing, by the side of a road – let the stars and the moonlight work their magic, and you might see badgers and deer, hedgehogs and mice, pine martens and foxes, maybe even a dormouse or a boar.
And don't forget to look up, in case an owl is silently sweeping past. Savour the moment. Robert Frost knew what he was talking about: the woods really are lovely, dark and deep.
