alike by shepherds and countrymen, and by the fauns and satyrs, birds
and beasts, of his own kingdom. The care of flocks and herds was his,
and for home he had all the world of woods and waters; he was lord of
everything out-of-doors! Yet he felt the burden of it no more than he
felt the shadow of a leaf when he danced, but spent the days in
laughter and music among his fellows. Like him, the fauns and satyrs
had furry, pointed ears, and little horns that sprouted above their
brows; in fact, they were all enough like wild creatures to seem no
strangers to anything untamed. They slept in the sun, piped in the
shade, and lived on wild grapes and the nuts that every squirrel was
ready to share with them.

The woods were never lonely. A man might wander away into those
solitudes and think himself friendless; but here and there a river
knew, and a tree could tell, a story of its own. Beautiful creatures
they were, that for one reason or another had left off human shape.
Some had been transformed against their will, that they might do no
more harm to their fellow-men. Some were changed through the pity of
the gods, that they might share the simple life of Pan, mindless of
mortal cares, glad in rain and sunshine, and always close to the heart
of the Earth.

There was Dryope, for instance, the lotus-tree. Once a careless, happy
woman, walking among the trees with her sister Iole and her own baby,
she had broken a lotus that held a live nymph hidden, and blood dripped
from the wounded plant. Too late, Dryope saw her heedlessness; and
there her steps had taken root, and there she had said good-by to her
child, and prayed Iole to bring him sometimes to play beneath her
shadow. Poor mother-tree! Perhaps she took comfort with the birds and
gave a kindly shelter to some nest.