Hamadryad Brugh
24" x 36" acrylic on board, 2005

Hamadryads are born bonded to a particular tree. Some believe that hamadryads are the actual tree, while normal dryads are simply the entities, or spirits, of the trees. If the tree died, the hamadryad associated with it died as well. For that reason, dryads and the gods punished any mortals who harmed trees.

Haste then, I conjure you, said I, good Theocles, and stop not one moment for any ceremony or rite. For well I see, methinks, that without any such preparation, some divinity has approached us, and already moves in you. We are come to the sacred groves of the Hamadryads, which formerly were said to render oracles. We are on the most beautiful part of the hill; and the sun, now ready to rise, draws off the curtain of night, and shows us the open scene of nature in the plains below. Begin: for now I know you are full of those divine thoughts that meet you ever in this solitude. Give them but voice and accents: you may be still as much alone as you are used, and take no more notice of me than if I were absent. ~ Anthony Ashley Cooper's (The Third Earl of Shaftesbury) Characteristics (1714: Treatise 4 Part 3 Section 1