CHAPTER VII. Sylvans, Wood Nymphs, and Tree Spirits.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Folkard, Richard
Closely allied to the Fairy family, the Well Fays, and the Naiades, are the Sylvans of the Græco-Roman mythology, which everywhere depicts groves and forests as the dwelling-places and resorts of merry bands of Dryads, Nymphs, Fauns, Satyrs, and other light-hearted frequenters of the woods. Mindful of this, Horace, when extolling the joys and peacefulness of sylvan retirement, sings:—
“Me the cool woods above the rest advance,
Where the rough Satyrs with the light Nymphs dance.”
The Dryads were young and beautiful nymphs who were regarded as semi-goddesses. Deriving their name from the Greek word drus, a tree, they were conceived to dwell in trees, groves, and forests, and, according to tradition, were wont to inflict injuries upon people who dared to injure the trees they inhabited and specially protected. Notwithstanding this, however, they frequently quitted their leafy habitations, to wander at will and mingle with the wood nymphs in their rural sports and dances. They are represented veiled and crowned with flowers. Such a sylvan deity Rinaldo saw in the Enchanted Forest, when
“An aged Oak beside him cleft and rent,
And from his fertile hollow womb forth went
(Clad in rare weeds and strange habiliment)
A full-grown Nymph.”
The Hamadryads were only females to the waist, their lower parts merging into the trunks and roots of trees. Their life and power terminated with the existence of the tree over which they presided. These sylvan deities had long flowing hair, and bore in their hands axes wherewith to protect the tree with which they were associated and on the existence of which their own life depended. The trees of the Hamadryads usually grew in some secluded spot, remote from human habitations and unknown to men, where
“Much sweet grass grew higher than grew the Reed,
And good for slumber, and every holier herb,
Narcissus and the low-lying Melilote,
And all of goodliest blade and bloom that springs
Where, hid by heavier Hyacinth, Violet buds
Blossom and burn, and fire of yellower flowers,
And light of crescent Lilies and such leaves
As fear the Faun’s, and know the Dryad’s foot.”—Theocritus.
The rustic deities, called by the Greeks Satyrs, and by the Romans, Fauns, had the legs, feet, and ears of goats, and the rest of the body human. These Fauns, according to the traditions of the Romans, presided over vegetation, and to them the country folk gave anything they had a mind to ask—bunches of Grapes, ears of Wheat, and all sorts of fruit. The food of the Satyrs was believed, by the early Romans, to be the root of the Orchis or Satyrion; its aphrodisiacal qualities exciting them to those excesses to which they are stated to have been so strongly addicted.
A Roumanian legend[9] tells of a beauteous sylvan nymph called the Daughter of the Laurel, who is evidently akin to the Dryads and wood nymphs; and Mr. Ralston, in an article on ‘Forest and Field Myths,’[10] gives the following variation of the story:—“There was once a childless wife who used to lament, saying, ‘If only I had a child, were it but a Laurel berry!’ And heaven sent her a golden Laurel berry; but its value was not recognised, and it was thrown away. From it sprang a Laurel-tree, which gleamed with golden twigs. At it a prince, while following the chase, wondered greatly; and determining to return to it, he ordered his cook to prepare a dinner for him beneath its shade. He was obeyed. But during the temporary absence of the cook, the tree opened, and forth came a fair maiden who strewed a handful of salt over the viands, and returned into the tree, which immediately closed upon her. The prince returned and scolded the cook for over-salting the dinner. The cook declared his innocence; but in vain. The next day just the same occurred. So on the third day the prince kept watch. The tree opened, and the maiden came forth. But before she could return into the tree, the prince caught hold of her and carried her off. After a time she escaped from him, ran back to the tree, and called upon it to open. But it remained shut. So she had to return to the prince, and after a while he deserted her. It was not till after long wandering that she found him again, and became his loyal consort.” Mr.
Ralston says that in Hahn’s opinion the above story is founded on the Hellenic belief in Dryads; but he himself thinks it belongs to an earlier mythological family than the Hellenic, though the Dryad and the Laurel-maiden are undoubtedly kinswomen. “Long before the Dryads and Oreads had received from the sculpturesque Greek mind their perfection of human form and face, trees were credited with woman-like inhabitants, capable of doing good and ill, and with power of their own, apart from those possessed by their supernatural tenants, of banning and blessing. Therefore was it that they were worshipped, and that recourse was had to them for the strengthening of certain rites. Similar ideas and practices still prevail in Asia: survivals of them may yet be found in Europe.”
In Moldavia there lingers the cherished tradition of Mariora Floriora, the Zina (nymph) of the mountains, the Sister of the Flowers, at whose approach the birds awoke and sung merrily, desirous of anticipating her every wish, and the wild flowers exhaled their choicest perfume, and, bowing gently in the wind, proffered every virtue contained in their blossoms. Yielding one day to the fascinations of a mortal, Mariora Floriora gave herself to him, and forgot her flowers, so that the leaves fell yellow and withered, and the flowers drooped their heads and faded. Then they complained to the Sun that the flower nymph no longer tended them, but rambled over the mountains and meadows absorbed with her mortal lover. So a Zméu (evil spirit) was sent, who seized her in his arms, and carried her away over the mountain. Now she is never seen; but when the moon is shining on a serene night, her plaintive murmurs are sometimes heard in the caverns of the mountain.