Satyr
Satyr · The Half-Beast — Forest Folk of Wine, Music, and Revelry
The satyr (ancient Greek Σάτυρος, Latin satyrus) is a half-human, half-beast nature spirit of Greek mythology, the riotous follower of the god of wine and madness Dionysos. The earliest attestations are in Hesiod's 'Catalogue of Women' fragment 10 (c. 700 BCE, which calls them 'a useless mischievous race') and the Homeric Hymn to Pan (number 19, late seventh century BCE); the visual canon is fixed in Attic black- and red-figure pottery of the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, with the François Vase (Ergotimos and Kleitias, c. 570-560 BCE, National Archaeological Museum of Florence) and the Brygos Cup (c. 480 BCE, British Museum) as the standard sources. The earliest Greek satyr was originally a horse-tailed, horse-eared theriomorph, but in the Hellenistic period (late fourth century BCE) the satyr fused with the Roman Faunus (a forest and pastoral god from the cult of Numa Pompilius) and the goat-legged, horned, goat-tailed iconography came to prevail. In the fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons 'Mythic Odysseys of Theros' (Wizards of the Coast, 2020), satyrs stand 150 to 180 centimetres tall, with a human upper body, hoofed goat legs, short curled horns, a short goat tail and a wild curly head of hair and beard on the human portion. Racial traits are +2 Charisma, +1 Dexterity, Magic Resistance (advantage on saving throws against magic), Mirthful Leaps (double jump distance) and the signature Reveler trait that lets them play a syrinx or aulos with charm and fascination effects. They live in herds in woodlands and fields, accompanying the maenads in the Dionysian thiasos. The iconography is carried into the Renaissance through Botticelli's 'Venus and Mars' (1483, National Gallery, London) and Michelangelo's 'Bacchus' (1497, Bargello Museum, Florence), through Debussy's 'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun' (1894), Disney's 'Fantasia' (1940), and Mr. Tumnus in C.S. Lewis's 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (1950).
