In Greek mythology, the hamadryads or hamadryades (in Greek Ἁμαδρυάδες / Hamadryádes) are a type of nymphs associated with trees. They are similar to dryads, sometimes distinct from each other, and at other times implicitly identified among themselves, though not explicitly in other sources. As with other secondary characters in Greek mythology, the texts do not clarify much about the nature of the hamadryads themselves, leading the debate on these nymphs to be in the hands of classical philologists. Some argue that a hamadryad is the tree itself or its spirit, while a regular dryad is simply the entity residing in the tree. If the tree dies, the hamadryad associated with it also dies. For this reason, both dryads and gods punish mortals who harm divine trees.
In Athenaeus
Athenaeus provides the most extensive mythographic text about the hamadryads. In the Banquet of the Scholars, it is stated that “the epic poet Pherecydes, of Heraclea origin, asserts that the fig tree received its name from Sicye, the daughter of Oxylus.
Indeed, Oxylus, the son of Oreo, joined with his sister Hamadryad or Hamadria and begot, among others, Caria (‘nut’ — walnut —), Balano (‘acorn’ — oak —), Cranea (‘cornel’), Morea (‘mulberry’), Egero (‘poplar’), Ptelea (‘elm’), Ampelo (‘vine’), and Sicye (‘fig tree’).
These are called hamadryad nymphs, and many trees are named after them. That’s why Hipponax also says: ‘the black fig tree, sister of the vine.'” The text seems to indicate that the term hamadryads corresponds to a metronymic, meaning they are the ‘daughters of Hamadryad.’ Nothing else is known about Hamadryad or Oxylus.
In Antoninus Liberalis
Antoninus Liberalis tells us that Miletus had a daughter, Biblis or Byblis. Feeling an unrequited love for her brother Caunus, she decides to throw herself off a cliff; however, the nymphs of the place, to save her, “plunged her into a deep sleep and transformed her, from being mortal, into a hamadryad nymph, and made her their companion and friend.”
In another metamorphosis, Antoninus speaks of Dryope, whom “the hamadryad nymphs loved extraordinarily: they made her their playmate.” One day, when Dryope was heading to a temple of Apollo in Dryopis, the hamadryads took her away, causing a black poplar to emerge in her place, and Dryope herself became an immortal nymph since then.
Other Sources
Apollodorus tells us that ten of the Danaides were born from two “hamadryad nymphs, some from Atlantea (Ἀτλαντείη or Ἀτλαντείης) and others from Phoebe (Φοίβη).”
Tzetzes speaks of the hamadryad Crisopelea (Χρυσοπέλεια). The author adds the detail that the tree in which Crisopelea lived was threatened by the rising of a river. Arcas, who was hunting in the vicinity, rescued her, diverted the river, and secured the tree with a dam. Propertius mentions hamadryads several times. They say that they abducted the youth Hylas; but a few verses later, he also calls them dryads. He also tells us that the hamadryads witnessed the love between Aphrodite and Anchises.
Apollonius of Rhodes wrote that the father of Parebios committed a terrible offense because “once, cutting trees alone in the mountains, he disregarded the pleas of a hamadryad nymph, who, sobbing, begged him with insistent words not to cut the trunk of an oak of her age, in which she had spent her long existence uninterrupted. But he, in his foolishness, cut it with the arrogance of youth. And for this, the nymph subsequently brought a harmful fate to him and his children.”
Ovid briefly mentions the nonacrine hamadryads, companions of Syrinx, and also Pomona, the most skillful hamadryad in the study of trees and the use of orchards. The same author also tells us that Calisto belonged to the retinue of the hamadryads in the service of Artemis.
Nonnus frequently mentions hamadryad nymphs, but always in a minor context.
Related to the hamadryads, as nymphs associated with a certain type of trees, are the Heliades (Ἡλιάδες / Heliádes) — transformed into poplars or alders that weep amber — and the Hesperides (Ἑσπερίδες / Hesperides) — nymphs of apple trees with golden fruit.
Names of the Hamadryads
The Banquet of the Learned by Athenaeus of Naucratis lists eight hamadryads, daughters of Oxylus (son of Oreius) and his sister Hamadryad:
- Karya (walnut, hazel, or chestnut)
- Balanos/Balanus (oak, but also the name for the crustacean or barnacle belonging to the family Balanidae)
- Kraneia (cornel or cherry)
- Morea (mulberry)
- Aigeiros (Black Poplar)
- Ptelea (elm. From which the genus Ptelea, belonging to the family Rutaceae, takes its name)
- Ampelos (grapevine. Derived from the name Ampelos, the adolescent satyr loved by Dionysus)
- Syke (fig)
Other Hamadryads
- Atlantia, a concubine of Danaus
- Castalia
- Crisopelea, mother of some children of Arcas
- Phoebe, another concubine of Danaus
- Biblis, twin and lover of Caunus
- Eurydice, wife of Orpheus
- Dryope, transformed into a nymph or a poplar
- The Heliades
- The Hesperides
Mythology
Callimachus, in his “Hymn to Delos,” tells us that the disposition and temperament of these deities vary depending on the type of tree under their protection, shedding tears when leaves fall or uttering hoarse cries of joy with the arrival of spring rains on the young green foliage.
There are also legends describing the vengeful power that these nymphs could express towards those who threatened their trees. Other stories speak of the punishment that befell those who cut their trees without permission or deviated from the prayers assigned to these divinities, as they were considered intermediaries between mortals and immortals.
Evolution
Hamadryads are referenced in a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, “Sonnet to Science” (part of the collection “Tamerlane and Other Poems”).
The philosopher and writer Anthony Ashley Cooper (3rd Earl of Shaftesbury) also mentions them in “Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times” (1714: Treatise 4, Part 3, Section 1).
In “Crome Yellow” (1921), the first novel published by Aldous Huxley, the character Anne Wimbush is referred to as “the subtle hamadryad whose movements were like the swaying of a young tree in the wind.”
In C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia,” both dryads and hamadryads are described and presented.
Biology
The figure has been immortalized in the names of two animal genera: the butterfly species called “Hamadryas,” and the northern monkey native to Asia Minor, the Hamadryas baboon. The butterfly is one of the most arboreal species and commonly engages in mimicry among tree branches, feeding on sap, rotten fruit, and dung. The “Hamadryas” baboon, on the other hand, was one of the most well-known monkeys in Greece, existing in Egypt and Asia.