Episode 403: Satyrs & Fauns
/Keeping with our nature spirits trend, we’re talking about the horny (in more ways than one) Greek nature spirits: satyrs, and their Roman counterparts, fauns! Later satyrs!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of sexual content, sexual assault, masturbation, bestiality, and drugs.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends a convention banana.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And hey, Amanda, how— how you doing? How's your summer going?
AMANDA: Julia, it's been a great summer. It's been a wild few days, but no matter what's going on in my life, I know that I can count on sitting down with you and learning something touching or transcendental or absolutely buck wild about mythology and folklore.
JULIA: Oh, it's gonna be a buck wild one this one.
AMANDA: Yay.
JULIA: Just telling you in advance. So we've been touching a lot on these summer episodes, all about kind of nature spirits, and I've really been enjoying talking about the various, like, nymphs, and dryads, and nereids, and whatnot. But I also think that it's worth talking about some of the nature spirits that don't exactly have, like, a nice polish as these beautiful ladies do, you know?
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Nature spirits like fauns and satyrs, for example.
AMANDA: Oh. Okay. I love this.
JULIA: This episode, we are going to dig into these sort of, like, comedic, gross characters of mythology and the gods that were in charge of them that we haven't really focused on too much in previous episodes about Greek mythology.
AMANDA: I am so into it. And Julia, in a weird way, I really do associate this kind of corner of specifically ancient Greek mythology with you, not just because you're my mythology bestie, but also because, like, in, you know, middle and high school getting to do ancient Greek plays. And even Shakespeare, there's a lot of like, "That's a dick joke," that makes teenagers really excited to close read ancient texts. And so I am obsessed with this, and I am so excited to learn.
JULIA: Yeah, my biggest regret is we only did Greek tragedies when we were in high school, and none of the Greek comedies.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: And there's some good Greek comedies. We'll get there. We'll get there. There's— there's some good Greek comedies in here.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: But let's get into it. We'll— gonna kind of give ourselves a little basis of what we're dealing with, and also get some misconceptions out of the way.
AMANDA: All right. Like— like, how half-goat, half-men are not extremely sexy, because they definitely are.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, to start us off, a little bit of content warning at the top here, satyrs are notoriously horny. There's going to be a lot of sexual imagery around them, and we're going to be talking about a lot of stuff like erections and masturbation and sex. So if that's not your cup of tea, no worries. We'll see you next week. No problem. We love you. With that in mind, Amanda, a satyr is your favorite thing in the world, which is a human animal hybrid. Do you know what animal?
AMANDA: My— my brain is saying goat, but maybe it's ram.
JULIA: So a lot of times we do assume that satyrs are goat men. However, this is sort of a later development in mythology, and we'll get into why that is when we talk about like the god Pan, for example. But originally—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —satyrs were actually associated with horses.
AMANDA: Oh. Okay.
JULIA: So in a lot of early art, they are more identifiable by their horse ears and tails, their horse-like legs. Though in later art, they are shown more often with human legs rather than animal legs. And they are always portrayed with a big, ol' erection.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. They're also almost always naked in art, so there's really nothing covering that bad boy. It's just—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —kind of out there for the whole world to see.
AMANDA: Just— just to make sure you know exactly what's going on there.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. So compared to our other nature spirits, like the lovely and beautiful nymphs and stuff, satyrs are portrayed, or at least describe as being hideous, but in a comedic way, not a horrifying way.
AMANDA: Interesting. And, yeah, I mean, the dryads and sirens and all of that, they're almost like enchanting, and the sort of, like, sexual allure is not really the point of it. Like, we don't see, you know, Odysseus' men, like, you know, horn-doggedly trying to, like, run to the sirens. It's like— it's like a spell. It's like magic. It's like pure or something, in a way that's, like, not based on our baser human desires.
JULIA: No, but we also do see a lot in Greek mythology of gods, and in particular, satyrs, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Or just mortals in general, being so moved by the beauty of these women that they're like, "I have to have them. I— I fell in love immediately."
AMANDA: Sure. Yeah, but it's— it's love, though, and it feels like this is kind of lust-based and not love-forward.
JULIA: I— I think it's really interesting, and I think we'll talk about this a little bit. But satyrs are kind of these— these base desires compared to the controlled humanity of the civilized world. It's the animal versus the human.
AMANDA: Hmm. That makes sense.
JULIA: And I think that when the gods see a nymph and they're like, "Oh, I must have her," even though it is— it's horny or love. You know, sometimes those are conflated in Greek mythology. For the satyrs, it is seen as like comedic because they are so driven by their animal instincts.
AMANDA: Got it. I also think that the poets don't want to think about their wives wanting to fuck a half-horse, and so I think that part of that sort of, like, gender tint of sexual desire might be kind of mixed up here. So that's gonna be a thesis that I'm following throughout the episode.
JULIA: Okay. All right. I'm into it. I'm into it. So again, they're kind of this, like, hideous and a comedic way, not a horrifying way. They have this mane, like, hair, again, hearkening back to the horse. They've got these kind of squashed noses. They're distinctly bestial looking in comparison to what we'll see in later art.
AMANDA: Uh-hmmm.
JULIA: But it's like very distinct that these are the epitome of the wild aspect of nature compared to, for example, the beauty of nature with our nymphs, or the way that, like humanity has civilized the world. Again, that animal versus human is a big thing when we're comparing these satyrs to humanity.
AMANDA: I guess with horses specifically, that's a, you know, a breed that humans have kind of, like, refined, dominated, like made to, you know, serve our own purposes. And certainly, you know, as a horse girl, I started using the horse shampoo recently, Julia. My hair is finally long enough.
JULIA: Whoa.
AMANDA: And so that's just a development my modern adult horse girlhood. But there's something about the horse as having, like, its own, you know, desire and spirit that I think is particularly like civilization breaking, right? Because it's like it— it's throwing off the metaphorical bridle and saddle and saying like, "No, I want to fuck your wife." And your wife is like, "Yeah, please."
JULIA: Yeah. Your wife is like, "Yeah, I wanna fuck that horse."
AMANDA: Sounds great.
JULIA: I mean, the Greeks love horses. There's a literal horse creation myth in Greek mythology.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: That's how much they love horses.
AMANDA: Listen, absolute same.
JULIA: I get it. I'm into it. All right. So satyrs are big fans of things like drinking wine, and dancing, and playing the flute, and chasing after and flirting with nymphs and mortal women, having sex with animals, masturbating, and unsurprising given all the things that I just listed, hanging out with Dionysus.
AMANDA: Yeah. Of course, they're bestie.
JULIA: Hesiod refers to them, in some of his writing, as good for nothing, prankster satyrs.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: And as such, they are seen as being these kind of mischievous tricksters with crazy sexual appetites. Sometimes in stories to their detriment.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Like, the sexual appetite leads to their downfall.
AMANDA: Yeah. No, I'm— I'm getting the farcical vibes, for sure.
JULIA: And— and speaking of some of these stories, we have to talk about the satyr plays.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, my theater kids out there probably know what's good about the satyr plays. But for those of you who weren't theater kids, or aren't theater kids, satyr plays were basically these parodies of tragedies in kind of the height of Athens, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. A sort of like South Park tackling politics vibe. Is that fair to say?
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. Yeah. So in the satyr plays, the satyrs make up the chorus. They are led by their father, Silenus, who we will talk about a little bit later. And the storylines are basically just sex comedies. They are really obscene. They are full of dirty jokes. As Amanda pointed out, it's almost like Shakespearean in a way of like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —"Yeah, that was a dick joke," but much less subtle sometimes, Amanda.
AMANDA: I— I also love the making a farce of the Greek chorus, which, in tragedies, you know, they have these, like, beautiful monologs about, like, "Oh, man, like, you know, Odysseus did this," Or like, "Oh, my god, the— you know, Oedipus, Oedipus. Like, the tragedy of Oedipus, the beautiful things." And they're, like, haunting women dressed in, you know, like, long garments, and imagining just like a phallus, and it's just...
JULIA: Just covered in hair and also, there's a big dick.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So the only surviving full satyr play that we have available to us is the Cyclops, which is by Euripides. But we do have, like, also other— some surviving portions by other playwrights out there. So we know it was a genre. It wasn't just Euripides wrote this one satyr play, and we're like, "I guess that was the thing." No, we have some surviving remains of others.
AMANDA: Julia, this was the original, like, your favorite fan fiction author deleting their catalog off of AO3 or Live Journal. You're like, "Fuck. Like, I needed that. Like, what the hell?" And it's like—
JULIA: Why is there only one chapter left?
AMANDA: Why— I mean, like, I get why the ancient librarians didn't say like, "This is the peak of culture. We need to archive this." But I'm— I'm begging.
JULIA: But I'm— I'm begging, let me have it.
AMANDA: Let me have it.
JULIA: Go back in time, get the full satyr play.
AMANDA: I know.
JULIA: I also— I saw the Cyclops referred to as a burlesque version of Odysseus' run-in with Polyphemus, who's the Cyclops from the Odyssey.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But I would love to see a modern burlesque version of that now. That would be amazing.
AMANDA: For all the queer femmes who, like, love big lady.
JULIA: Pretty good.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: So satyr plays really kind of highlight the trickster, unserious nature of the satyrs. In one of the fragments that we do have of not the Cyclops, but another one of the satyr plays, a satyr tries to give Herakles, you know, the hero, Heracles, an enema.
AMANDA: Oh, great.
JULIA: They're out there making a bunch of dirty jokes. Like we mentioned before, the actors would wear big phallacies— or phal— phalli? Phallasi? I don't know.
AMANDA: Sure. Let's call it the phalli.
JULIA: I don't know what the— yeah. Phalli, that sounds right. It was just a bunch of wild, dirty fun. And what's not to like about that, you know?
AMANDA: Humans need that.
JULIA: Sometimes we just gotta let loose and make a lot of dick jokes. And that's okay.
AMANDA: If you're into that, I love it for you.
JULIA: But as much as that is how they were portrayed, Amanda, we also have to keep in mind that these were still, like, the companions of Dionysus, and they were nature spirits, and therefore, were treated with at least a little bit of reverence.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: It was said that some satyrs might have had a philosophical advice or divine wisdom, and they would share it if they could be either convinced or tricked into sharing it.
AMANDA: Oh, it's really interesting. Like, they— you know, there's like, a core of wisdom there that if you can either, like, distract or satiate, or like, bargain away their, you know, like horn dog front, then you can get to the pearl underneath. Sorry, I said pearl.
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: This episode's off the rails already.
JULIA: It's good. It's good. It's fine. Yeah. It feels very like leprechaun rules to me.
AMANDA: Yes, yes.
JULIA: You know, you're like, "Yeah, you can— you can have my wisdom or my gold or what have you, so long as you can trick it out of me."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So their mythological origins are a little bit more up in the air than the previous nymphs that we have talked about in previous episodes. Some say that they were the brothers of the Oreads, the— the mountain nymphs. While other specific satyrs may have had different parentage. It's— it's a little bit kind of up in the air and confusing.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: There's a scholar named William Hanson, who sort of succinctly sums it up with this quote of, "There may be more than one way to produce a satyr, as there is to produce a cyclops or a centaur."
AMANDA: Yeah. That makes sense.
JULIA: Like all the centaurs didn't come from one place. All the Cyclopses didn't come from one place. There are a bunch of different ways of making these creatures.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But it's also worth noting that, in Greek mythology, there are no female satyrs, so it's not like they're reproducing among themselves.
AMANDA: It's interesting. It's almost like they are, you know, like a mule, you know, creature that can be created, but not one that can, like, create more of itself.
JULIA: Yes, yes. I— I also think that it's very interesting because the different poets and different scholars sort of disagree or contradict each other in terms of whether or not satyrs are immortal beings.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Like, we all— we already know, like, gods can die, gods can be killed, or gods can like—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —be— be harmed in certain ways. And especially like minor gods, like nymphs and stuff like that can— can be killed. However— and we've seen some stories of satyrs who die, but we're not sure that, like they have an infinite life if they don't— if they aren't killed. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Got it. Yeah. Maybe they're still frocking around in the forest somewhere.
JULIA: Exactly. We're not sure. So there are a couple of individual satyrs that I think are worth talking about. You might remember Marsyas from our episode on the Muses. He was the one that challenged the god Apollo to the music contest that was judged by the Muses.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: He ends up losing. He's flayed by Apollo. His skin is turned into a wine skin. It's a whole thing.
AMANDA: That's right. Oh, what a— what a— what a baller punishment.
JULIA: It's wild. It's truly wild. But Amanda, did you know that Marsyas had a brother named Babys?
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: And Babys also challenged Apollo to a music contest in order to avenge his brother.
AMANDA: Did he think it would end differently?
JULIA: He did think it would end differently.
AMANDA: Oh, poor baby.
JULIA: While Marsyas had skill, and that's why he felt like he could challenge Apollo, Babys was not good at playing the pipe.
AMANDA: He had one brain cell and a lot of balls.
JULIA: He really did. And so Athena was called to judge this contest, and the contest goes on, and Babys plays, and Athena goes, "Oh, honey, no." She feels so bad for him, because she basically tells Apollo, she's like, "Listen, you know you beat him. You don't have to punish him. It's okay. He was so bad at music, he doesn't need to be punished for."
AMANDA: And for Athena to say that respectfully, it must have been pretty bad.
JULIA: It must have been really bad. There were also a couple of other satyrs, Ampelos, who was the lover of Dionysus and who was transformed into a grapevine by the god.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Ampelos, unlike most of the other satyrs, was considered very beautiful, which is why Dionysus took him as a lover. And one day, Dionysus has this vision of Ampelos getting killed by a wild bull, and that comes to fruition because Ampelos decides he's gonna mock the moon goddess Selene.
AMANDA: Don't do that.
JULIA: No. So she sends a gadfly to irritate the bull that Ampelos was riding on, which gores him to death.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Kind of classic.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So Dionysus, extremely heartbroken over the death of his lover, transforms Ampelos' body into the first grapevine and created wine from the blood, quote-unquote, "the blood of the plant."
AMANDA: I would love to become, or to fertilize, a fun intoxicant for people.
JULIA: Don't we all? Don't we all want a drink named after us at the end of the day? I know we love a etymology corner, Amanda.
AMANDA: Ooh. Yeah.
JULIA: And I think that the satyrs are particularly interesting, because a lot of the scholars think that the name actually predates the ancient Greek language.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So some think that it might come from a pre-Greek word that means wild animal, which was then turned into the Greek word therion, which is why the Greek playwright Euripides sometimes referred to the satyrs as theres.
AMANDA: Hmm. That makes sense.
JULIA: So there's also a suggestion that it might have come from the root word, meaning to sow, as in sowing seeds.
AMANDA: Okay, interesting. Because, yeah, I was thinking like, satiate. I don't know if that's like a Latin root or a Greek root, but something about, like, you know, making something full.
JULIA: Yes. I— I think so. And also, you know, they're— they're sowing their seed out there, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Satisfied sexually.
JULIA: And then my favorite theory is that it might have come from an ancient Peloponnesian word meaning the full ones, in a reference to their hard dicks.
AMANDA: Great. Love it. Why not?
JULIA: So we'll— we'll talk a little bit about this later, but it's also important for us to know as well that satyrs were also known as the sileni, which the singular is silenus, and were then later synchronized with the Roman fonts.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And actually, le— let's talk a little bit about the differences between the satyrs and the fauns right now.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: What is interesting is, originally, the Romans saw fauns as more humanlike. They were originally spirits of rustic places, and were portrayed as just, like, naked men.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: A lot of times we think that like, "Oh, the Romans, they just copied everything that the Greeks did." You know? And— and they did, they did. They did do that. But they had a lot of their own spirits first—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —you know? And then they sort of synchronized their spirits with the mythology of the ancient Greeks. So when the Romans began to combine their culture with ancient Greek culture, they became fully that kind of, like, half-human, half-goat hybrid that we better know in modernity.
AMANDA: As James McAvoy. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Yes, the James McAvoy, the Mr. Tumnuses out there.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: What I sort of like about the Roman faun versus the Greek satyr is that the faun was more similar to what we end up seeing in a lot of Eastern European folklore. So this idea that, like, fauns were a danger to people who were traveling through the wilderness, because they were the spirits of these wild places in between society and civilization.
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: Now, there were times where, like, they could be helpful, they could lead travelers back to the path if they got lost, et cetera. But a lot of times, we get stories of them being tricksters, leading people off the path, getting them lost.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Which is very kind of, like, Black Forest trickster forest spirits that we see in Europe, and specifically in Eastern Europe, in the kind of Middle Ages period where we're getting a lot of our folklore out of there.
AMANDA: Yeah. And you're— you know, you're traveling between civilization, you're kind of— it's kind of nature's rules and nature's world when you're in that realm. And so it— it feels like they're right to trick us and lead us astray if we are trying to pass through their forest.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. And it's not like human beings can take over all of nature, right?
AMANDA: Right, because then there—
JULIA: Right.
AMANDA: —will be no— no fauns to have a sexy liaison with on your way to visit your sick grandma.
JULIA: That's true. That's very true. So finally, one of the key elements of the fauns was their association with the god Faunus, as well as the goddess Fauna, but we will talk about them and also their Greek counterparts of Pan and the god Silenus, but soon as we get back from our refill.
AMANDA: Sounds good.
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AMANDA: Hi, everybody. It's Amanda, and welcome to the refill, where I'm finally no longer sick. You can hear in my voice, I'm still recovering, but I'm very glad to be here, actually, recording this ahead of time, because I'm going to be on vacation with my family in Ireland when you are listening to this. Been planning it for years, and Eric and I are so excited to go see bits of Galway that we have not been to before, so it is gonna be amazing. But if you joined the Patreon in the last week, thank you so much. We will thank you next time when we are back at work. And thank you, as always, to our supporting producer and legend-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Hannah, Jane, Jeremiah, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. If you would like to join the Patreon and have your name read in the next episode, please do so at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Now this week, I'm going to recommend a bit of a coda to my recommendation last week to have your sick-day foods on hand and watch Supermarket Sweep. What I would instead like to recommend is to have a banana in your bag at all times, many times during the work convention that I am at now in the present. But as you listened to this last week, I was like, "God, I really— I need a little snack, and I don't have anywhere to go, and I don't want to spend $6 on, like, one bag of Popchips." And the answer is a convention banana. Okay, listen to me. It comes with its own holder. It can live in your bag. It can knock around for a couple of days. It can get a little bit bruised, or you can eat it a little bit under ripe, and it's perfectly okay. It won't leave your breath smelling weird. You don't need utensils to eat it, and there are no crumbs that are going to get on your outfit. So highly recommend the convention banana as a emergency snack to have on you at all times. This week, if you are enjoying this episode of Spirits, which I had so much fun recording, we would highly recommend that you text a friend who would love this episode. So don't just be like, "Oh, hey, I listened to this podcast. You'll love it." Which is a great start. But you should say, "Oh, my God, you are going to be obsessed with this podcast because—" and then tell them especially and specifically why it is a great fit for them. Do they love death? Are they into queer shit? Were they a horse girl growing up and see themselves in me? Whatever the thing is, if they have, like, blue and green hair, just like Julia, say, like, you're gonna have something in common with these girls. You're gonna love them, that comes out every dang week, and you can listen to any of their 400 plus episodes. So that is the most helpful thing you can do, along with joining the Patreon to help us grow the show and keep on going. So thank you to those of you who have done it, and if you're able to help the show, pause the pod right now. Think of one person you want to DM this to, and do it, spiritspodcast.com is the link to send them to. This week at Multitude, we have so much going on. I've been here at a podcast conference, and I walked up to the folks at NASA who are here, pretty cool. And said to them, "Oh, hey, you should listen to Pale Blue Pod." It's an astronomy podcast for people who are a little overwhelmed by the universe but want to be its friends, where every single week, astrophysicist Dr Moiya McTier and comedian Corinne Caputo demystify space one topic at a time. By the end of each episode, the cosmos will feel a little less, "Oh, my God, that's so scary," and a little bit more, "Oh, my God, that's so cool." So if the people at NASA pulled out their phones and subscribed to Pale Blue Pod in front of us, which they did, you too should be listening to Pale Blue Pod. All right? Go into your podcast app right now. I know you have it open because you're listening to me, type in Pale Blue Pod and hit subscribe. They have new episodes every week, just like us. Or if you want to go to their website and see the adorable little pixel art that Corinne made, go to palebluepod.space. We are sponsored this week by BetterHelp. As an adult, I have really had to find excuses to learn new stuff. There is stuff that I'm learning at my job. There is like, I don't know, recipes I learned how to cook, but just the simple joy of, like, learning something new in a hobby, like gardening or knitting or crochet or ASL, learning a new language, has been so exciting and lighting up my brain in ways that I'm not used to. Therapy can also help you reconnect with that same sense of wonder. Even if you are no longer going back to school like me, even though September always says that to me, you can use therapy as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and about the world, and how you can better interact with it. I know that I have had that journey in therapy, which I really appreciate, and just equip me better to learn about myself, and I highly recommend it. Now, if you are in a place where accessing therapy, whether financially or physically and logistically, is challenging, I want you to consider BetterHelp as a way to access therapy. They are entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. So rediscover your curiosity with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/spirits to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. And now, let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And since satyrs are so into wine, and because of their association with Dionysus, we have a wine-focused cocktail for today's episode.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: So what I'm gonna suggest for this episode is a figurati, which is basically a cocktail that combines the aperitivo cappelletti, bitters, specifically Peychaud's bitters if you can get it, and one of my favorite summer wines, which is lambrusco, which is a sparkling red wine.
AMANDA: It is absolutely delicious. I don't think I would ever say to myself, "I need this red wine to be sparkling," but somehow it really comes together. And, like, over a lot of ice, if you, like, feel it. It's so good.
JULIA: Yeah, it's— it should usually be chilled. And I think that this is, like, a really good cocktail, because it's like— it's bitter, it's refreshing. It's like an elevated wine spritzer.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: You know? It's like what your— your wine moms in your life should be drinking instead of what they are drinking.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: Now, Amanda, we're gonna play a quick game here, because we've been talking a lot about all of these different nature spirits and everything like that. And there are a lot of different nature spirits for different aspects of nature, but I also think that there are certain aspects of nature that are slightly different from what they were in ancient Greece. The way that we kind of interact with nature nowadays is slightly different, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah, of course. There were not, you know, huge swaths of concrete, for example, papering most of the world when these ancient fauns and satyrs were running around.
JULIA: So what I would like to do is I would like us to describe a, quote-unquote, "modern aspect of nature" and then we're gonna come up with what the nature spirit for that aspect of nature is like.
AMANDA: Hmm. Cool.
JULIA: And I got, like, five here, so we can play around with them a little bit.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: So the first one that I was thinking about is the park. Like, I think of Central Park, for example, since we're talking about, like, swaths of land concreted over, but these are, like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —these curated, quote-unquote, "nature spaces" in cities. What do you think the— the nymph or the nature spirit of the Central Park would look like, for example?
AMANDA: One aspect of those kinds of park that really interests me, like Frederick Law Olmsted, was the kind of architect and designer of Central Park, and then Eric and I actually just visited in Buffalo, another of the parks, Buffalo, New York that he created. And I love how they would try to, like, recreate the feeling of sort of getting lost in the woods.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Like in Central Park, there's a section called The Ramble, which is designed to feel like an accidental sort of path through the, like, undergrowth and like a little hilly place where you can forget that you're in a city.
JULIA: Dare I say, my favorite part of Central Park.
AMANDA: I love the Rose Garden in East—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —Harlem, but that's— that's a very close one as well. And so something about this is, like, not deception, really, but maybe you, like, stumble into, like, a grotto, and then you realize that, like, everything around you is perfectly manicured. So something where, like— I don't know, maybe it's a— a spirit that became a faun or a satyr, or maybe they— I don't know, they, like, require people to sort of, like, unbuild themselves, to then rebuild exactly what the image was before. Do you know what I'm getting at?
JULIA: Yeah. I— I'm picturing almost like an extremely manicured nature spirit.
AMANDA: Yes. Yeah.
JULIA: Like, it— for example, if we're taking a— a satyr or a faun as our— as our standard for this one.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Painted nails. Like, just the most perfect, like, mane of hair. Like, it looks like the—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —platonic ideal of a horse man.
AMANDA: Yes, yes, yes.
JULIA: You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: And just, like, perfectly quaffed, smells amazing, you know?
AMANDA: Oh, yeah, glossy, like, shined hooves, yeah, that kind of thing.
JULIA: Yes. Like, the idea of, like, we've taken nature and we've really manicured it into the platonic ideal.
AMANDA: Yeah, exactly. Or, like, making Carhartt high fashion, like, that's— that's kind of the— the vibe.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. I like that. I'm into that. Okay. Let's move on to our next one, which is the beach, Amanda.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So we've got water nymphs and stuff like that, but the ancient Greeks definitely were doing the beach differently than the way that we do the beach now recreationally.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So what does the recreational beach nymph look like?
AMANDA: I think that she is covered in, like, mussels and oysters, and a little—
JULIA: I thought you meant like muscles.
AMANDA: That's fine, too. And, like, hermit crabs and seaweed, and all the stuff that, like industrial beachcombers comb away from the— the beach itself. Like, all of the, you know, the rocks and the jetties.
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: You know, that it— it's like all of the sort of unrefined parts of a beach that leaves behind the, like, very, you know, similar sand that remains for us to lounge on.
JULIA: I really like that, and I'm gonna yes, end that, and say she also is constantly covered in a flock of seagulls.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah. And they constantly just, like, feed on people who come into her grove.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: A little bit more of a malicious spirit, but I'm kind of into that.
AMANDA: Yeah. I— I think that's— I think that's really good.
JULIA: Last time I was at the beach, I brought a bag of chips with me. Again, buried it in the bottom of my bag. It was an unopened bag of chips, right? I went down to the water, and then I came back. They had pulled several things out of my bag, pulled the bag of chips out and opened it themselves and were just gorging on it.
AMANDA: Julia, no.
JULIA: I know.
AMANDA: Unopened?
JULIA: Unopened.
AMANDA: Brutal. You're like, "Well, that's— that's yours now."
JULIA: They got me good. The next one that I want to talk about kind of similar to the first one, but I think also distinctly different, the National Park.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: As a basically government-controlled area where we don't allow anyone to, quote-unquote, "civilize" it, you know what I mean? Develop it.
AMANDA: Yeah. And a troubled legacy. You know, we kind of carve out, you know, several 100 acres and say like, "That's enough. We can fuck up everywhere else that we want to do." Or they're, you know, taken from tribal lands. Like the National Park as— as gorgeous and accessible as it is for many of us, a troubled legacy. And so I think that there is something in, like, the rigid boundaries of the National Park where you'll see something go from, like, full city motels, you know, highways, et cetera, to, like, a totally different set of rules based on sort of an arbitrary. And there's also very strict in many places, like carry in, carry out policies, and so I think there's something where, if you, you know, break off a twig or eat a berry, or try to, like, take a rock out of the place, or you, like, discard some litter, a sort of like spirit of stasis will activate.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: And eject, like a— like a white blood cell, the infection.
JULIA: Interesting. I like that.
AMANDA: May— maybe— maybe a dryad, specifically.
JULIA: In my brain, I was also thinking kind of body horror-y in that—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —the, like, confinement of— the space is also reflected in the body of the spirit itself.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And this idea that they are, like, rigidly, like, shaped into a box of some kind that they cannot, like, move out of, sort of like, you know, a mime in a glass prison.
AMANDA: Yeah. Or like a root bound houseplant, you know? Or like a terrarium that gets overgrown, just like bursting at the seams.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Again, a little sinister, but I'm into it.
JULIA: Well, actually, that brings me to our next one, Amanda, which is the— the indoor plant or the houseplant.
AMANDA: Okay. I think this has got to be a little version of a nature spirit.
JULIA: Of course.
AMANDA: Because, like— listen, visiting my sister in Hawaii, like, those monsteras, dude, like, the leaves are, like, bigger than my torso. Like, they are huge. The— the little Pothos that I have, like, growing in my apartment, the leaves are, like, bigger than my hands. And so— so many houseplants are, you know, removed from their original biomes, but they're beautiful. And so we raise them, and they are lovely and pretty, but not the sprawling size that we are used to. So I think just like a miniature god is the way I want to go with this.
JULIA: Yeah. And I think maybe there's like an interesting play too, on, like, the culture shock of your plant, your indoor houseplant spirit now in your house being like, "Why— why don't you have the food that I like from my homeland?" And you're like, "I don't— I don't know. I'm so sorry."
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: And then finally, Amanda, the spirit that I want to talk about is the idea of monoculture. Like, the idea of places like Monsanto and stuff like that. Fields and fields of just corn, or just soy, or just wheat, kind of taking over a place where other plants should be growing.
AMANDA: Hmm. This feels to me like a foe that appears to be so strong, but if you surprise it— like, imagine it's like a— a foe with, like, a— a sword, right? And you're like, "Okay, well, I have to sword fight them." But I feel like, "No, if I— if I trip them, they won't know what to do." Or if I try to, like, bargain with them, they'll be like, "Uh—" and so it's like the— the monoculture— like, if you engage with them on their terms, so strong, but the littlest bit of, like, creativity or variance, or like going around the plan sells them really easily. So I'm almost picturing like a, you know, a giant knight, or like a huge, you know, ear of corn, or, like, bloated soybean, you know, with like a— a thrasher or something. And then you're like, "Okay. Well, I'm— I'm gonna go around." And they're like, "What?"
JULIA: Wait, what? My brain— again, I don't know why I'm going so body horror on this, but you remember that really fucked up episode of Doctor Who, where the monster kind of, like, absorbed people into their— their body?
AMANDA: Oh, sure.
JULIA: Yeah. That was— that's the thing that I was thinking of.
AMANDA: Yeah. That's— I mean, yeah, all of the— all the things that should be there. And then if you vanquish it, then all of the wonderful, you know, like—
JULIA: Biodiversity?
AMANDA: —beneficial insects, yeah, and, like, all that stuff just comes pouring out.
JULIA: All right. I love that. Everyone can think about how terrible the things we created were, except for the adorable little indoor houseplant one. That was great.
AMANDA: We accept fan art at Spirits Podcast.
JULIA: Amanda, now that we've kind of talked about that, I want to talk about the, quote-unquote, "father of the satyrs," Silenus.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: So he wasn't actually the father of the satyrs, but he was usually seen as the oldest of the satyrs that was part of Dionysus' squad, right?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: In fact, he was actually said to be the tutor and mentor of Dionysus when he was younger, and is even considered the foster father of Dionysus.
AMANDA: Oh, wow.
JULIA: He is referred to as the oldest, the wisest, and the drunkest of Dionysus' followers. But the drunkenness is actually his secret, Amanda.
AMANDA: Really?
JULIA: Because when he is drunk, he is said to possess the power of prophecy, as well as a hidden knowledge that he can impart unto others.
AMANDA: Nothing has ever described what it feels like to be three drinks deep at a bar, and chatting with a stranger, and being like, "I know. I know."
JULIA: "I can solve all your problems."
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: "Just listen, listen, listen, listen. Shh. Listen. I can solve all your problems."
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: Amanda, actually, this might blow your mind. The story of King Midas actually involves Silenus.
AMANDA: The king and his gold, really?
JULIA: The king and his gold.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Because King Midas heard that Silenus had that hidden knowledge, and he wanted to learn it.
AMANDA: Oh, okay. All right, all right.
JULIA: And so one day, he sends his men to lace the fountain of wine that Silenus is often drinking from with some sort of narcotic or what have you, which causes him to fall asleep. And then his men brought the sleeping god to Midas, who actually treated him really well. He was like, "You, you're great. I like you."
AMANDA: Midas seems very reward-oriented and, like, he will— he will treat everybody great if they can be useful to him.
JULIA: Yes. So Silenus, once he was awake, entertained Midas for five days and five nights with tall tales and stories. And at the end of those five days and five nights, Dionysus arrived to be like, "Can I have my guy back now?"
AMANDA: What happened?
JULIA: And so for treating Silenus so well, Dionysus grants Midas a gift of his choice, and Midas chooses that everything he touches turns to gold. And we know how well—
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: —that works out for him.
AMANDA: I picture Dionysus like giggling behind his fist like, "All right, bro. Whatever you want."
JULIA: Dionysus is like, "Yeah, that— that won't end badly for you. Whatever, man."
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: "Whatever you want."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So while Silenus acted as a tutor and foster father for Dionysus, we should talk about his father, which is the god Pan.
AMANDA: Of course. Wondering how Pan got in the mix here.
JULIA: Yeah. So Pan is the companion of the nymphs. He's the god of the wild places. He's the protector of the shepherds and flocks, and he's the patron of rustic music.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: Also I think the implication with rustic music is also the patron of kind of improvised music.
AMANDA: Hmm, nice. Like— like a jam.
JULIA: So the idea of, like, just impromptu, "Oh, I'm just gonna play a song and see what happens," sort of thing.
AMANDA: The pub session. Love it.
JULIA: So he, much like we described the later satyrs and the fauns, has the legs and horns of a goat and is associated with sex and fertility.
AMANDA: I really want, Julia, later satyr to be the like bye, bye bitch of 2024.
JULIA: Later satyr.
AMANDA: Right?
JULIA: I think— Amanda, I think we have to save it for 2025 because I think we're— we're coming to a close on 2024.
AMANDA: Yeah. You're right. You're right.
JULIA: And we should start claiming it as soon as we can in 2025.
AMANDA: Yeah, the vibes feel tentatively optimistic, and so we can say, "Later, satyr," to all of the you know stuff we want to leave behind in 2024.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. So start laying the groundwork, listeners now at home.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: To start doing later, satyr, but we're gonna be full blown by 2025.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Get ready for it.
AMANDA: You gotta get it— gotta get it, like, rolling off the tongue. You gotta— like, gotta warm up. You gotta prepare.
JULIA: Pan, unlike the Olympian gods, who usually had temples erected in their honor. I know I use the phrase erected.
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: That'll come back later.
AMANDA: Thank you.
JULIA: Pan was usually worshiped in natural settings like caves and grottoes, because, again, he's this rustic god.
AMANDA: Why is the word grotto so sexy? Is it because people keep—
JULIA: I don't know. I—
AMANDA: —people like have little liaisons in a grotto?
JULIA: The image of a grotto is incredibly hot and I don't—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —know why. It makes me think of all of those, like, Instagram restaurant in a cave places. You know exactly what I'm talking about?
AMANDA: Yeah. Yeah. Or the, like— the, like, Tumblr screen cap that's like, "I'd rather be here." And it's like a sexy lady in, like, a tide pool, you know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yeah. And I would— I would rather be there.
AMANDA: That, like, slams laptop shot aesthetic, but it's— it's just like a half-horse and a grotto. And it's like— yeah.
JULIA: So Pan was also known as Aegocerus, goat-horned. Makes sense.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And Lyterius, the deliverer, because he was said to have sent remedies to disease to people in dreams.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: So, like, if someone was sick, they would often go to a worshiping place of Pan, would go to sleep there. And then in the dream, they would be like, "Oh, all I have to do is eat 10 cloves of garlic and then I'll be cured."
AMANDA: That's so cute. It's like how punks look out for each other or, like, Club kids, like, if one of them is sick, will, like, send them— send them chicken soup, and then be like, "When you're— when you're ready, we'll welcome you back."
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: So cute.
JULIA: I like that. It's very cute. So Pan was said to be the son of Hermes, though, who the mother of Pan is— depends on the author. There's a lot of different versions out there. But at the same time, there are some stories that depict Pan as being older than the rest of the Olympians.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So, like, for example, there are some stories in which Pan is the one that teaches Apollo the skill of prophecy, or is the one that gives Artemis her infamous hunting dogs, et cetera.
AMANDA: He does feel— he's like uncle vibes. You know?
JULIA: He does. He has drunk uncle vibes.
AMANDA: I don't know if we're related, or if uncle's just always been there. I don't know where uncle came from, but, like, uncle's always there to, like, teach me a really good trick for algebra.
JULIA: Yes. Or give me a bunch of hunting dogs.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I also think that we've mentioned this in the past, but we get the word panic from Pan.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: It was said that during the battle with the Titans, Pan let out such a horrible screech that it terrified the Titans and sent them scattering in terror, causing them to, quote-unquote, panic.
AMANDA: I— I really need to, like, keep this at the forefront of my mind, because a panic really does feel so— so much like an external force is overtaking your body. And I— I think if I view it as, like, my brain has gone into, like, dubstep turbo mode. And I'm like, "Buddy, we are— we're at the orchestra. Going to be fine. Take a few deep breaths, calm those BPMs down and— and, like, it'll be fine," is a visualization that I can see working for myself.
JULIA: Yeah. I'm kind of into that.
AMANDA: You know?
JULIA: Also, next time you feel a panic, just picture a little goat man—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —who's causing all that and you said, "No. None of this right now."
AMANDA: And he's dancing too fast, and it's like, "All right, let's bring it down. Let's bring the tempo down. Let's bring it down."
JULIA: And is really into the— the, like, club scene right now in her mind.
AMANDA: I— right? Julia, tell me when I ever been to a club. Never.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, speaking of the club scene, Pan is just as horny as the rest of the satyrs as we've mentioned before.
AMANDA: Yeah. Yeah.
JULIA: Which is unsurprising, given the fact I mentioned he's associated with sex and fertility.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: He is also often seen with a phallus because, of course, and was even jokingly mentioned by a poet once as having learned how to masturbate from his dad, the god Hermes, and enjoyed it so much that he taught the skill to the shepherds he's the patron of.
AMANDA: And, you know, respectfully, shepherds spend a lot of time away from home, lot of time just like sleeping— sleeping rough, you know, with their flocks, watching over them, he gets lonely.
JULIA: He gets lonely, and sometimes you just got to jerk it, because your god tells you to.
AMANDA: Not to get too real, but like, in a— in a moment of real kind of biological essentialism in the US, it's— it's very affirming to hear a god be like, "Yeah, jerk it. And if you wanna have kids, great. And otherwise—"
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "—jerk it if you're into it and don't, if you don't.
JULIA: Moving away from jerking it, another one of his important aspects is the pan flute, which I'm sure a lot of people have heard of before, but if you haven't seen a pan flute before, it's basically like a flute— or rather a series of pipes made out of reeds, hollow reeds, which are kind of lined up in order from shortest to longest to make higher or lower notes collectively.
AMANDA: Like, I think I said a couple weeks ago, Julia, it's the AT&T symbol, but an instrument.
JULIA: Yes, it is. So the reason or the story of how he developed the pan flute starts with a nymph named Syrinx, who was a follower of Artemis.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, she was returning from the hunt one day, and she came across the god Pan, who started to pursue her, because, of course, he was— he was horny and was in love.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And all the things that the gods always say that they are. So knowing his reputation, she starts to run away from him, not stopping to the story wants me to specify, hear the compliments that he is trying to pay her.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: She said, "Nope. Don't want to hear it. I am a follower of Artemis. I don't want to bang."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "I'm going." So eventually, she runs into two of her sisters, who transform her into a reed.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Now, Pan comes across the reeds, and while he is still searching for the nymph, not knowing she's transformed, he hears the wind blow across the reeds, letting out what the story calls a plaintive melody.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. where she's like, "Leave me alone. Stop running after me. I said no."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. But Pan is intrigued and still infatuated, and so he takes the reeds, he cuts them down, he cuts them into seven pieces, and he creates the first pan flute, which is also known as the Syrinx.
AMANDA: Fascinating. That's it?
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. Ain't that just the way? This is what— as we talked about with the dryads episode, this is just constantly happening to these nymphs all the time.
AMANDA: Yeah. Yeah.
JULIA: They're just constantly being turned into plants.
AMANDA: Yeah. They're like the— the red shirts of Greek mythology.
JULIA: They truly are. They truly are. And so to round us out here, Amanda, we're going to talk about the Roman version of Pan, as I mentioned before, which is Faunus.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So he, much like Pan, is this rustic god of the forests and the plains, and was also in charge of making cattle fertile.
AMANDA: Okay. I mean, very— very necessary.
JULIA: A very important thing. We need livestock. And if the livestock can't have other livestock, then society crumbles.
AMANDA: Very tough. And you don't want to know about manual insemination for cattle. It's not nice.
JULIA: No. No, you do not. So he was also associated with prophecy and oracles, and would reveal the future in dreams to those, much like Pan, who would sleep in his sacred places. So we also have records of two different festivals that were celebrated for Faunus, both of them were called Faunalia.
AMANDA: I know it's like simply just Latin, but like the -alia suffix is just like— it's so— it signifies a good time.
JULIA: It's a good one. I like that one a lot.
AMANDA: Saturnalia, yeah.
JULIA: Yeah. Even if you didn't know it meant, like, celebration or festival, you would still be like, "Alia, that—"
AMANDA: Ooh. Yeah, sign me up.
JULIA: Ooh, I wanna dance.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: So the first is on February 13th, and the other is December 5th. And both were kind of celebrated by the common people bringing rustic offerings to the god, and, of course, lots of drunken dancing.
AMANDA: Listen, the fields are fallow. What are you gonna do? We gotta— we gotta drink and dance.
JULIA: Exactly. Now, Faunus had a goddess version of himself, which was the goddess Fauna. And in some stories, she is his wife, his sister, his daughter. Doesn't really matter. They're all basically the same role, right? And so she is viewed as the goddess of the countryside.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So like a little bit more cultivated, more like rolling fields rather than forests and— and rustic places.
AMANDA: She's a lady, Julia.
JULIA: She's a lady. She's all about those rolling hills, if you know what I mean. All about those curves. So she, similarly, is associated with the ability to see the future, to the point where she is described as, quote, "being filled with divine spirit assiduously predicted future events as if inferior."
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Now, she was mentioned as being the goddess who nurtures all that is useful to living beings, which I think is very cool.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And that makes sense as a result that we use her name to refer to animals, aka fauna.
AMANDA: Ah, like Flora and Fauna.
JULIA: Exactly. The way that satyrs and fauns were portrayed in art and in society, evolved even further after the fall of the Romans. So, like, during the Middle Ages, Christians would often use the images of satyrs to evoke evil and demonic creatures, and they were eventually tied to Satan because of not only their appearance, but because of their kind of bestial and sexual nature.
AMANDA: Yeah, people take the shit about cloven hooves out of context. And also, like, it's, I suppose, satanic in that worldview to lead with your dick.
JULIA: Yes. It is— it is satanic to lead with your dick. You heard it here first, folks.
AMANDA: I'm not saying I endorse it, I'm— I'm saying that's the worldview.
JULIA: Yes. But a lot of the imagery that we got of, like, the devil and Satan that come out of the Middle Ages are very distinctly tied to the imagery of satyrs.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. I mean the number of times you've seen like, goat-hoofed Satan, right? Cloven-hoofed Satan as like a thing is innumerable.
JULIA: And even the horns and stuff like that.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: However, by the time that the Renaissance rolled around, and European artists started kind of reclaiming mythological imagery for their own, they were included in many different paintings and sculptures. Sometimes, they were shown in that kind of drunken revelry as we know them from Greek mythology, but more often, they appeared as more domestic and at peace in the wilderness, rather than their more violent and, quote-unquote, "evil depictions" from the Middle Ages.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And that even developed further and further as we get out of the Renaissance into more modern art— not like modern art as we think it, but like, you know, the 1800s and early 1900s, the sort of classical art styles.
AMANDA: Yeah. Capital C, Classical.
JULIA: Exactly. So all of these different versions of satyrs and fauns and the gods associated with them have ties to many different nature spirits around the world, especially ones that are sort of, like, animal-human hybrids. Even horse and goat-like features are not original to satyrs. There are a lot of different part-goat, part-men figures in Celtic folklore, for example. The Leshi from Slavic traditions are also very similar to satyrs, which in— the way that they are covered in hair, and they have goat horns and ears and feet, and are nature spirits—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —right? And there are many, many other nature spirits, of course, though very few are as identifiable for us as the satyrs and the fauns.
AMANDA: And let me say, Julia, sexually impressionable.
JULIA: Yes. Yes, indeed. Indubitably. So, I hope that you, Amanda, and also our ConSpiriters, you— you got to know a little bit more about satyrs and fauns, even if you already knew a little bit about them. And I hope that we get to learn more about stuff like this in the future. I— I get to decide what we learn about but hey, I hope we do more of this.
AMANDA: It's great. And, you know, next time you're sleeping rough in the hills, and watching over the sheep, and there's no cell reception, and you went through your wine, and you're kind of bored and a little bit horny, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.