The most accepted idea on what "Lost where the forest would grow, The children followed the pointed tail." refers to doesn't feel right to me.

The most accepted idea on what "Lost where the forest would grow, The children followed the pointed tail." refers to is: Dess and Kris, perhaps Asriel aswell, Maybe Noelle? - getting lost in hometowns forest while travelling together, and following the tail of hell, which led them to the shelter. Now, I am on board with the children being Kris/Dess/Asriel/maybe-Noelle?, along with the "following the tail of hell" part, but the other ideas just don't stick with me.

First of all, the "being led to the shelter" part. The shelter is directly connected to Hometown by a clearing of trees, so I doubt the gang actually planned on going into the shelter if they clearly wanted to explore the forest. If the tail of hell had brought them to the shelter, they most likely would have either: Turned back into the forest, using the shelter as a waypoint - Or went past it to go home. And before you misunderstand, I do think something happened at the shelter - I just don't think it started because the gang was lured there.

The the bigger thing: The gang being lost in hometowns forest. I do not think this is the case, because of the specific wording. "Lost where the forest [[[would grow,]]]" not "Lost in unfimiliar forest," or "Lost in the deep forest,", it's "Lost where the forest would grow,". Which means that wherever the children were lost, there wasn't a forest. Saying it's where a forest would grow could mean 2 things. Either: They were in a location where there was meant to be a forest, but there wasn't for some reason, like an out-of-bounds area - Or they were in an area that would have a forest in the future, but didn't at the time.

If we are assuming the latter is true, then maybe they were in a spot where (in the future) there was going to be a dark world, that contains a forest area. Maybe the shelter dark world? What if the gang didn't seek to explore the forest, but rather inside the shelter, and got lost there? But that's getting off topic.

In summary, I think that the most common interpretation of "Lost where the forest wold grow, The children followed the pointed tail." is incorrect, due to the shelter not being of interest if the children wanted to explore the forest, and mainly due to the specific wording of "Lost where the forest would grow,". Thank you for reading.