What does the forest represent to Agnes in the novel, Hamnet?

From time to time throughout the novel, Agnes returns to the forest near Hewlands. The forest represents Agnes’s mother and her connection with nature. Agnes’s mother emerged from the forest before marrying Agnes’s father. She often took Agnes to the woods to teach her natural remedies, a habit contributing to their reputation as strange, witchlike women. Agnes herself returns to the woods to give birth to her first child, Susannah, in the hollow of a fallen tree. The woods grow to represent not only Agnes’s mother but also her freedom of choice and natural strength.