CHAPTER VII.
Sylvans, Wood Nymphs, and Tree Spirits.
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