Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/448

 41 8 The European Sky-god.

Hesychius run : 'KpicfjvWov ' rov ^ XiroWwva koI tov '^pfirj and e'pt'^L'A.A.o? Bpu^; ' rj 7r'kaTV(j)vWo<;, kol 77 KaXov/Jievr] <f)eW6<;, i.e. " The very-leafy, a title of Apollo and of Hermes " and " The very-leafy oak, the broad-leaved species, and the so-called cork-oak." From this it is clear that the Greeks had a cult of Apollo named after a par- ticular variety of oak-tree. Again, the connection between Apollo and the oak comes out clearly in the myth of Dryope."^^ Dryops, king of CEta, the son of Spercheiis and Polydora,''^*^ had an only daughter Dryope, who tended her father's flocks. The Hamadryads loved her exceedingly and taught her how to hymn the gods and to dance. Apollo, who saw her dancing, was enamoured of her and, to attain his ends, became first a tortoise, which she fondled and put into her bosom, and then a snake. The second change scared away the nymphs, who left Dryope and her lover alone. Shortly afterwards Dryope was wedded to Andraemon, son of Oxylus ; but the result of her union with Apollo was the birth of Amphissus. He grew to man's estate, built the town of CEta, and established a temple of Apollo in Dryopis. When Dryope visited this temple, the Hamadryads carried her off and hid her in the forest. In her place they caused a poplar to spring from the ground and a fountain to gush forth beside it. Dryope now became a nymph. Amphissus founded a Nymphaeum in her honour and a contest in running, which is still kept up. From this contest women are excluded, the reason given being that, when Dryope was carried off by the nymphs, two maidens revealed the fact to the natives of the land and thus incurred the anger of the nymphs, who transformed them into fir-trees.

In this myth Dryope, the " ^^y^-maiden," is replaced by a poplar — a change that we have already met with in the


 * Ant. Lib., 32, from the 'ErEpoiovfitva of Nicander.

^^ Another version made Drj-ops the son of Apollo and of Dia, a daughter of Lycaon (schol. Ap. Rhod., I. 1283, Etyvi. mag., 28S, 34, Tzetz. ad Lye. Alex., 480)