"A man in the forest, he once asked of me
How many black berries grow in the deep sea?
I answered him back with a tear in my eye
How many dark ships in the forest"

....or multiple trad. variations thereof.

I used to think the origins of these lines were lost in metaphor and mythology until I saw this odd (but not deliberately surrealist) film by Werner Herzog, "Aguirre: The Wrath of God", which contains a scene of a boat in a tree.