In Homer, Circe tells Odysseus that the entrance to the underworld is marked by a grove of black poplars and willows belonging to Persephone, the queen of the dead. It is the last identifiable feature before the mud and the dead trees. Teilo cuts the grove. The arrival is described instead as the moment the world simply stops working: sky closing, wind dying, fog so thick your voice feels wrong, the bow plowing into black mud. The named grove is replaced with sensation. Persephone herself stays in the chapter (her cry is what drives Odysseus to flee, and the threat of her Gorgons is what makes him run). Her grove is one of the small named places the retelling lets go to keep the underworld dreamlike and unmappable.
Persephone's Grove
The grove of black poplars and willows at the underworld's edge in Homer. A specific landmark cut from the retelling.