Nemeton

**The Nemeton** is a significant location in Season 3 and Season 5 of *Teen Wolf*. It was originally an ancient tree in a grove in the Beacon Hills Nature Preserve that was chosen to be the consecrated sacred meeting place for the Druids who lived in Beacon Hills. They built a root cellar underground below it and painted a five-fold knot at the base to indicate that it symbolized the world tree. It was believed that any harm that came to the Nemeton would cause the surrounding towns and villages to suffer from plagues, strife, and other kinds of natural disasters.

The Nemeton contains powerful magic and is fueled by ritual sacrifices. The wood of the Nemeton has been used to create powerful objects, such as the triskele urn that contains Talia's claws. At some point, the tree was cut down by an unknown person, but the stump still retained a small spark of power. It has since been reawakened by the surrogate sacrifice ritual performed by Scott McCall, Allison Argent, and Stiles Stilinskiin 2011. In 2012, it became the place where the vessel of the Hellhound, Jordan Parrish, brought the bodies of the dead Chimeras in order to protect the secret of the supernatural.

## History

According to Chris Argent, a Nemeton is a sacred space used by Druids for various rituals. In the flashbacks in *Visionary*, he explained to his father, Gerard Argent, that Druids picked a large, older tree in a grove to represent the center of the world. Many believed that cutting or harming the "world tree" would bring severe problems like fires, plagues, strife, and “death and destruction of all kinds” to surrounding villages.

In 1943, a Kitsune named Noshiko Yukimura fled the riot and massacre at Oak Creek Internment camp after having defeated the Nogitsune and forced it to return to its fly form. She put the fly in a jar and buried it within the roots of the full-grown Nemeton, imprisoning it for nearly seventy years. (*The Fox and the Wolf*)

At some point between 1943 and the early 2000s, the tree was cut down by an unknown person, diminishing its power considerably, though it did retain a tiny spark of power, which the Darach and former Emissary Jennifer Blake once described as "a glowing ember in a dying fire."

Either before or shortly after this happened, Druid Emissary to the Hale Pack, Alan Deaton, harvested some of the wood to create a box to contain powerful objects and carved a triskelion, the symbol of the pack, into the lid. (*The Divine Move*)

In the early 2000s, then fifteen-year-old Derek Hale was forced to mercy-kill his girlfriend Paige Krasikeva after she rejected the bite given to her by an Alpha Werewolf named Ennis. However, he had taken her to the root cellar under the Nemeton, not knowing its true purpose, and when he killed her there, he unknowingly performed a virgin sacrifice that gave the Nemeton another spark of power again. (*Visionary*)

Some months later, the Alpha Deucalion killed all of his own Betas to subsume their power and become a corrupted form of an Alpha known as the Demon Wolf. He then decided to start the Alpha Pack, a pack of Alphas who had also killed their own Betas to absorb their power, and recruited fellow Alphas Kali and Ennis to join him. Kali did as she was told and killed her Betas before brutally mauling her Druid Emissary, Jennifer Blake. However, she loved Jennifer enough that instead of giving the killing blow, she left Jennifer for dead. Jennifer, whose face, neck, and chest had been mutilated beyond recognition, crawled toward the stump of the Nemeton and used the spark of power gained from Paige's sacrifice to hang onto life just long enough to be found by Sheriff Stilinski and his deputies, who took her to the hospital. (*The Overlooked*)

From then on, Jennifer decided to get her revenge on Kali and the Alpha Pack by performing a series of sacrifices using a five-fold knot design (by sacrificing trios of virgins, warriors, healers, philosophers, and guardians) and by manipulating the telluric currents in Beacon Hills to eventually re-power the Nemeton, giving her the power to take down the Alphas once and for all. (*The Girl Who Knew Too Much*)

After Jennifer took Sheriff Stilinski, Melissa McCall, and Chris Argent to act as her final guardian sacrifices, their children Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, and Allison Argent became desperate to find them and sought out Alan Deaton for help when they learned they . Deaton explained that he knew of a ritual that could help them, but that it was dangerous, in part because doing so would give power back to the Nemeton, returning it to its status as a beacon that will draw supernatural creatures to it like a magnet. They went through with the ritual anyway, and returned the Nemeton to its full power.(*Alpha Pact*)

Several weeks later, someone (presumably Noshiko Yukimura pulled out a freshly grown piece of the Nemeton, which caused fireflies to be released from the crack in the stump and form several Oni demons. (*Galvanize*)

When it was revealed that Noshiko was connected to the Oni, Scott McCall and Kira Yukimura went to her for answers, and Noshiko explained that that the ritual performed by Scott, Stiles, and Allison to find the Nemeton also released the Nogitsune she had imprisoned there. (*The Fox and the Wolf*)

The Nemeton became significant again in Season 5, when Jordan Parrish admitted to Lydia Martin that he had been having dreams about an ancient tree stump in the nature preserve, where he would bring dead bodies and lay them on the stump before setting them ablaze with his yet-undefined pyrokinetic abilities. After hearing his story, Lydia realized that the Nemeton drew Parrish to Beacon Hills as a result of his yet-unknown supernatural powers. At the end of the episode, he stole the body of one of the Chimeras, Lucas, and brought him to the Nemeton in a trance-like state. (*Condition Terminal*)

After it was revealed that Parrish was acting as the current vessel for the power of the Hellhound, Lydia, Chris Argent and Gerard Argent cooled his body to dangerously low levels so they could communicate with the Hellhound itself. It explained that it was reborn into Parrish's body the moment that Scott, Allison, and Stiles temporarily died during the surrogate sacrifice ritual. (*A Credible Threat*)

## Characteristics

The Nemeton remains a mysterious force in the *Teen Wolf* universe. According to Gabriel Valack, it is a supernatural force that the members of the McCall Pack barely understand. However, what is known is that it is a sacred meeting place for Druids to gather and perform their rituals. It also has supernatural power of its own, though the full range of what it can do remains unknown. It acts as a beacon that draws supernatural creatures toward it, and at the height of its power, it acted as a prison for the Nogitsune. It also appears to act as a portal of some kind, as the Oni were summoned from within it using their firefly forms. It also is likely connected to the telluric currents, as Jennifer Blake was manipulating the currents to augment her Darach powers in her fight against the Alpha Pack, and the Nemeton appears to be located at the site of one of the most powerful convergences of telluric currents in Beacon Hills, suggesting that it may feed the Nemeton's power.

The Nemeton gets the majority of its power from human sacrifices, which can take many different forms. The first known sacrifice to the Nemeton was Derek Hale's accidental virgin sacrifice when he mercy-killed Paige Krasikeva at the roots of the Nemeton. Jennifer Blake subsequently sacrificed twelve people to the Nemeton in four groups of three: virgins (Heather, a lifeguard, and Emily), warriors (Kyle, the high school band teacher, andAdrian Harris), healers (Dr. Hilyard and two other physicians from Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital), and philosophers (Tara Graeme, Mr. Westover, and the recital pianist). Finally, Scott McCall, Allison Argent, andStiles Stilinski committed suicide by drowning in an ice bath so they would act as surrogate sacrifices so their parents wouldn't be killed in their place; it was this trio of sacrifices that fully charged the Nemeton to the point it is at today.

It has been implied that whoever cut the Nemeton down is what caused all of the strife and supernatural chaos that has occurred in Beacon Hills over the years. It was also suggested in *The Last Chimera* that the Nemeton has to want to be found, which is why the members of the McCall Pack have constantly struggled to locate it in the vast nature preserve. However, those with supernaturally-enhanced sight, like Werewolves, can find it if they use their glowing wolf eyes, as shown when Liam Dunbar helped Mason Hewitt find the Nemeton by using his glowing gold Werewolf eyes.

## Trivia

* Though the Nemeton did not make its first appearance until *Visionary*, it was revealed in *Lunar Ellipse* that Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, and Allison Argent had all actually seen it for the first time in the events of the series premiere, *Wolf Moon*.