The Daughters of Fire

I usually refer to pure dryads as Devourers. This name comes from the Great Mother, who devours the dead and returns them to the earth, where they came from. In my world, that mother is Mother Sap, and the pure dryads are manifestations of her, offspring of that first dryad.

The daughters of those terrible dryads are the Daughters of Fire, who are more human. They are still powerful, uncontrollable, superhuman, and guardians of the forest. Tamzyn is a dryad of this kind.

Our prehistoric ancestors knew the Devourers. They painted them in the caves.

Ancient civilizations knew the Daughters of Fire. They appear in legends.

Why did I decide to give them this seemingly contradictory name?

"In the Palace"

NYMPHS DANCING TO PAN'S FLUTE – DANCE OF FIRE

Joseph Tomanek (April 16, 1889 – December 31, 1974), a Czech-American artist, painted a work that reflects my vision like no other. There are at least two versions of this painting: a daytime one and one or two nocturnal ones.

There are also several recreations inspired by this work. In all of them, nymphs dance around a fire while a faun plays the flute.

This video shows it and talks about the subject:

Tomanek had this vision. Curiously, it is also mine. And it is present in European culture, as we will now see.

Why do they dance around the fire, if they are dryads, nymphs of the forest? Shouldn’t fire be their opposite? Well, it is. But not in the way you think.

Here, fire symbolizes a unifying agent, something that reabsorbs energy, that integrates. They dance around it in ecstasy. Fire consumes dead wood and returns it to the soil. It does not consume life; it feeds it.

This symbol tells us about the dryads: the eternal feminine, beauty and terror at once, life.

The faun is masculine, and in a way, so is the fire. There is a conjunction of opposites that complement each other.

Do the faun and the circle of figures remind you of something darker? Your mind has been conditioned. Perhaps of witches? I will talk about that later.

Now I will tell you a bit more about the Daughters of Fire.

ORIGIN

The maenads were the worshipers of the god Dionysus in ancient Greece.

Dressed in deer and panther skins, they danced in a frenzied trance, carrying torches and live snakes in their hands.

The Dionysian ritual took place at night, which makes fire an almost inevitable element of the rite.

Some dryads could participate in these rites, although they were the exception. In my world, the one who most resembles these wilder, more ecstatic nymphs is Aubeline.

You will see that in my story I mention Hylas, companion of Hercules. He was “abducted” by nymphs of a lake. We see this in Waterhouse’s painting.

There are several versions. In one, they abduct him for his beauty. In others, they drown him. In others, he is a lucky bastard who lives eternally pampered by them in the liminal world of the nymphs.

NERVAL AND THE DAUGHTERS OF FIRE

Gerard de Nerval wrote a work called "The Daughters of Fire" (1854). The origin of the title comes from the ceremonies of the Irish vestal virgins, or from a poem in a novel by Alexandre Dumas.

Nerval also wrote a poem about Melusine, called “Melusine or the Daughters of Fire,” in which he speaks of a fire fairy.

In “The Daughters of Fire,” Nerval describes feminine figures as burning, inaccessible, almost mythical beings; and the poet himself is consumed by them.

He is not really describing women, but superhuman beings.

NYMPHS AND WITCHES

Nymphs are not purely benevolent. They guard forests and natural places. A traveler may spy on them during their dances or baths, and pay with his life for his boldness.

In ancient cultures, encounters could cause muteness, obsession, or madness. Or the nymph may make you lose your way in the forest, fall into the lake, and drown (as in "The Green Eyes" by Becquer).

However, they were associated with "good" things such as fertility, generation, and nature.

Why do people no longer see them? Why do they no longer venerate them? Why do we only see the physical and the crudest symbol?

And yes, let’s blame modern religions. I will not refer to any specific one, because they all do the same.

I respect people’s feelings, and the basics of these religions are good. The figure of Jesus is impeccable. But it is not something native to us in Europe. Lately I think it is something that was sold to us, we adopted it, and it clashes with our mentality deep down.

We had our gods here before, our worldview. We adopted something foreign, and although it may be good for many, it does not reach me. I believe in a greater supreme god, and in imaginal presences (I will talk about that another day). This is reflected in my world of the Chasm.

Please don't misunderstand me. I think it's good and I am not blaming religion. If that is your approach to reality, and it works for you, it's good. It's just that I don't see the world the same way. I am not atheist or anti-religion. I am just another mindset, which is older.

Of course, you may disagree with me. It would be strange if you agreed.

Saint Augustine, in 400 AD, did everything possible to identify dryads with demons. He spoke of them as symbolic personifications of natural forces. And they are not that, but imaginal entities that express themselves in the forests.

He equated them with demons and succubi. Their sensuality and femininity horrified him. To him, they were female demons. And the forest, instead of being sacred, became the territory of the devil.

Everything else comes from there.

In art, the faun is replaced by the goat-headed devil. The beautiful, ideal nymphs become deformed, evil women. Sensuality becomes obscenity.

Myths about witches that never existed were invented. People who were priestesses or wise women of earlier cults were burned. Witches’ sabbaths never existed, at least not before some people adopted these absurdities, forgot the dryads, and believed the forced lies.

TODAY

Today, witches have come to symbolize things like female freedom. But this is inappropriate.

First, because they never existed. Neither sabbaths nor witches existed. Yes, some existed, but only through imitation and acceptance.

Second, because it is not liberating at all. It is actually accepting the stigma.

Also, if we want to understand the difference between a witch and a dryad, keep reading.

THE ENERGY OF A WITCH

The energy is different. A witch, for example, can be what is represented in the excellent song by Maria Brink, from the band "In This Moment":

But she is not a dryad or a nymph. She is a witch. An ambivalent witch.

This song is sublime. Because it represents the pain of many women, stained by the vision imposed by these modern religions.

With this mentality, a woman perceives herself socially and internally as something bad. That self-contempt permeates her self-awareness. In the song, she expresses it. That pain leads her to accept her “bad” side and say she is neither good nor evil, but somewhere in between.

Do you see it? She attributes evil to parts of herself. She feels unclean. She reaches liberation, but without rejecting those ideas.

THE ENERGY OF A DRYAD

A dryad does not conceive shame. She does not conceive evil within herself. She does not consider herself good either. She stands outside those categories.

If we consider her good, it is because she follows nature: she does what is natural. She preserves life, protects at all costs. She attacks what is unnatural, civilized, and dead.

Her femininity is without shame, without accommodation to society. She is free, powerful, sweet because she flows with life, strong like the roots of an oak. She does not fear crying and does not fear bleeding.

She does not fear facing danger. She can unite strength and femininity because she rejects nothing of her nature and knows that both things—compassion and courage—are united.

I always think there are two parts in her. One is natural, sensual. Like in "Acres Wild":

But there is also an implicit danger if you do not respect nature. In this song by "The Cure" we see it. He thinks he saw a woman in the forest. Follows her and gets lost. In the extended version here, she tells him to follow to her home, and the only way she knows is through the forest. But that has fatal consequences. 

I love this song. In another post I'll share with you several versions.

And well, that is what I wanted to tell you. Another day we will talk more about them. They are the heart of my world.

Now you know what they are and what they are not, and why they are the Daughters of Fire.