Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age,
From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth
In the low vale, or on steep mountain side--
And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns
Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard--
These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood
Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god.

Similar ideas are expressed in an article on the Nature of Early
History, by a celebrated English scholar, [Footnote: Henry George
Liddell, D. D., Dean of Christchurch College, Oxford.] who says:
"The legends, or mythic fables, of the Greeks are chiefly connected
with religious ideas, and may mostly be traced to that sort of
awe or wonder with which simple and uneducated minds regard the
changes and movements of the natural world. The direct and easy
way in which the imagination of such persons accounts for marvelous
phenomena, is to refer them to the operation of Persons. When the
attention is excited by the regular movements of sun, and moon,
and stars, by the alternations of day and night, by the recurrence
of the seasons, by the rising and falling of the seas, by the
ceaseless flow of rivers, by the gathering of clouds, the rolling
of thunder, and the flashing of lightning, by the operations of
life in the vegetable and animal worlds--in short, by any exhibition
of an active and motive power--it is natural for uninstructed
minds to consider such changes and movements as the work of divine
Persons. In this manner the early Greek legends associate themselves
with personifications of the powers of Nature. All attempts to
account for the marvels which surround us are foregone; everything
is referred to the immediate operation of a god. 'Cloud-compelling