The rest of the wood creatures just backed off into the wood, playing mischievous tricks on the new settlers, like turning the milk sour, rearranging furniture, tipping the cows, tickling people's faces in their sleep, and occasionally stealing babies and leaving bundles of wood in their place.

But man's dominion spread (and spread and spread and spread), and the forests got smaller and smaller and smaller. Things got real crowded in the woods, and things were getting worse in civilization. Most farmers weren't listening to the devic spirits anymore. People found that they could increase their output by disregarding the needs of the Earth. They were raising productivity and killing the soil. Petrochemicals were just a step away. Most of the devic spirits and the gnomes fled. The trolls stayed. Today they live mostly under bridges and in the shallow, mucky ditches beneath the metal grating on farm roads that cows are afraid to cross. Be sure to honk your horn before driving over one of these. A troll may be hanging from the grate, swinging over its living room, as they are apt to do after rolling in muck and manure, If you don't give a warning honk, you may run over its fingers, and it's not a great idea to get either your name or your license plate number on a troll's shit list.

Now there is little wild land left at all, and even that is shrinking at an unprecedented rate. There is simply not enough space for all the gnomes and elves, fauns and faeries, goblins, ogres, trolls and bogies, nymphs, sprites, and dryads.

So where are they?

Are they dead?

No!

So where did they go?

The answer is a bit surprising

They didn't go anywhere!

You did.