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In Greek mythology, a satyr (, ), also known as a silenus or silenos ( ), and sileni (plural), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and they always are shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbation or engaging in bestiality.
In classical Athens, satyrs made up the Greek chorus in a genre of play known as a "satyr play", which was a parody of Greek tragedy and known for its bawdy and obscene humor. The only complete surviving play of this genre is Cyclops by Euripides, although a significant portion of Sophocles's Ichneutae has also survived. In mythology, the satyr Marsyas is said to have challenged the god Apollo to a musical contest and been flaying for his hubris. Although superficially ridiculous, satyrs were also thought to possess useful knowledge, if they could be coaxed into revealing it. The satyr Silenus was the tutor of the young Dionysus, and a story from Ionia told of a silenos who gave sound advice when captured.
Over the course of Greek history, satyrs gradually became portrayed as more human and less bestial. They also began to acquire goat-like characteristics in some depictions as a result of conflation with the Pans, plural forms of the god Pan with the legs and horns of goats. The Roman people identified satyrs with their native nature spirits, . Eventually the distinction between the two was lost entirely. Since the Renaissance, satyrs have been most often represented with the legs and horns of goats. Representations of satyrs cavorting with nymphs have been common in western art, with many famous artists creating works on the theme. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, satyrs have generally lost much of their characteristic obscenity, becoming more tame and domestic figures. They commonly appear in works of fantasy and children's literature, in which they are most often referred to as "fauns".
Like satyrs, these similar creatures in other Indo-European mythologies are often also tricksters, mischief-makers, and dancers. The leshy was believed to trick travelers into losing their way. The Pay(n) were a group of male spirits said to dance in the woods. In Germanic mythology, Elf were also said to dance in woodland clearings and leave behind . They were also thought to play pranks, steal horses, Fairy-lock, and steal children and replace them with . West notes that satyrs, elves, and other nature spirits of this variety are a "motley crew" and that it is difficult to reconstruct a prototype behind them. Nonetheless, he concludes that "we can recognize recurrent traits" and that they can probably be traced back to the Proto-Indo-Europeans in some form.
Satyrs' genitals are always depicted as either erect or at least extremely large. Their erect phalli represent their association with wine and women, which were the two major aspects of their god Dionysus's domain. In some cases, satyrs are portrayed as very human-like, lacking manes or tails. As time progressed, this became the general trend, with satyrs losing aspects of their original bestial appearance over the course of Greek history and gradually becoming more and more human. In the most common depictions, satyrs are shown drinking wine, dancing, playing flutes, chasing nymphs, or consorting with Dionysus. They are also frequently shown masturbating or copulating with animals. In scenes from ceramic paintings depicting satyrs engaging in orgies, satyrs standing by and watching are often shown masturbating.
This image was reflected in the classical Athenian satyr play. Satyr plays were a genre of plays defined by the fact that their Greek chorus were invariably made up of satyrs. These satyrs are always led by Silenus, who is their "father". According to Carl A. Shaw, the chorus of satyrs in a satyr play were "always trying to get a laugh with their animalistic, playfully rowdy, and, above all, sexual behavior." The satyrs play an important role in driving the plot of the production, without any of them actually being the lead role, which was always reserved for a god or tragic hero. Many satyr plays are named for the activity in which the chorus of satyrs engage during the production, such as , , and . Like tragedies, but unlike comedies, satyr plays were set in the distant past and dealt with mythological subjects. The third or second-century BC philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum famously characterized the satiric genre in his treatise De Elocutione as the middle ground between tragedy and comedy: a "playful tragedy" (). The only complete extant satyr play is Euripides's Cyclops, which is a burlesque of a scene from the eighth-century BC epic poem, the Odyssey, in which Odysseus is captured by the Cyclopes Polyphemus in a cave. In the play, Polyphemus has captured a tribe of satyrs led by Silenus, who is described as their "Father", and forced them to work for him as his slaves. After Polyphemus captures Odysseus, Silenus attempts to play Odysseus and Polyphemus off each other for his own benefit, primarily by tricking them into giving him wine. As in the original scene, Odysseus manages to blind Polyphemus and escape. Approximately 450 lines, most of which are fragmentary, have survived of Sophocles's satyr play Ichneutae ( Tracking Satyrs). In the surviving portion of the play, the chorus of satyrs are described as "lying on the ground like in a bush, or like a monkey bending over to Flatulence at someone." The character Cyllene scolds them: "All you satyrs do you do for the sake of fun!... Cease to expand your smooth phallus with delight. You should not make silly jokes and chatter, so that the gods will make you shed tears to make me laugh."
In Dionysius I of Syracuse's fragmentary satyr play Limos ( Starvation), Silenus attempts to give the hero Heracles an enema. A number of vase paintings depict scenes from satyr plays, including the Pronomos Vase, which depicts the entire cast of a victorious satyr play, dressed in costume, wearing shaggy leggings, erect phalli, and horse tails. The genre's reputation for crude humor is alluded to in other texts as well. In Aristophanes's comedy Thesmophoriazusae, the tragic poet Agathon declares that a dramatist must be able to adopt the of his characters in order to successfully portray them on stage. In lines 157–158, Euripides's unnamed relative retorts: "Well, let me know when you're writing satyr plays; I'll get behind you with my hard-on and show you how." This is the only extant reference to the genre of satyr plays from a work of ancient Greek comedy and, according to Shaw, it effectively characterizes satyr plays as "a genre of 'hard-ons.'" In spite of their bawdy behavior, however, satyrs were still revered as semi-divine beings and companions of the god Dionysus. They were thought to possess their own kind of wisdom that was useful to humans if they could be convinced to share it. In Plato's Symposium, Alcibiades praises Socrates by comparing him to the famous satyr Marsyas. He resembles him physically, since he is balding and has a snub-nose, but Alcibiades contends that he resembles him mentally as well, because he is "insulting and abusive", in possession of irresistible charm, "erotically inclined to beautiful people", and "acts as if he knows nothing". Alcibiades concludes that Socrates's role as a philosopher is similar to that of the paternal satyr Silenus, because, at first, his questions seem ridiculous and laughable, but, upon closer inspection, they are revealed to be filled with much wisdom. One story, mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories and in a fragment by Aristotle, recounts that Midas once captured a silenus, who provided him with wise philosophical advice.
Rather than appearing en masse as in satyr-plays, when satyrs appear in myths it is usually in the form of a single, famous character. The comic playwright Melanippides ( 480–430 BC) tells the story in his lost comedy Marsyas of how, after inventing the aulos, the goddess Athena looked in the mirror while she was playing it. She saw how blowing into it puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly, so she threw the aulos away and cursed it so that whoever picked it up would meet an awful death. The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who challenged Apollo to a musical contest. They both agreed beforehand that whoever won would be allowed to do whatever he wanted to the loser. Marsyas played the aulos and Apollo played the lyre. Apollo turned his lyre upside-down and played it. He asked Marsyas to do the same with his instrument. Since he could not, Apollo was deemed to victor. Apollo hung Marsyas from a pine tree and Flaying him alive to punish him for his hubris in daring to challenge one of the gods. Later, this story became accepted as canonical and the Athenian sculptor Myron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon in around 440 BC. Surviving retellings of the legend are found in the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus, Pausanias's Guide to Greece, and the Fabulae of Pseudo-Hyginus.Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library 1.4.2; Pausanias, Guide to Greece 10.30.9; Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 165
In a myth referenced in multiple classical texts, including the Bibliotheke of Pseudo-Apollodorus and the Fabulae of Pseudo-Hyginus, a satyr from Argos once attempted to rape the nymph Amymone, but she called to the god Poseidon for help and he launched his trident at the satyr, knocking him to the ground. This myth may have originated from Aeschylus's lost satyr play Amymone. Scenes of one or more satyrs chasing Amymone became a common trope in Greek vase paintings starting in the late fifth century BC. One of the earliest depictions of the scene comes from a bell krater in the style of the Peleus Painter from Syracuse (PEM 10, pl. 155) and another from a bell krater in the style of the Dinos Painter from Vienna (DM 7).
According to one account, Satyrus was one of the many sons of Dionysus and the nymph Nicaea, born after Dionysus tricked Nicaea into getting drunk and raped her as she lay unconscious.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 16.244–280; Memnon of Heraclea, History of Heraclea book 15, as epitomized by Patriarch Photius I of Constantinople in his Myriobiblon 223.28
| Ampelos | nonnus Dionysiaca, Ovid | young lover of Dionysus/Bacchus, contested in footrunningNonnus, Dionysiaca 10.400 & 12.190 and swimming, killed by Selene for challenging her, Dionysus turned him into a star or the grape vine. |
| Astraeus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | son of Silenus and brother of Leneus and Maron;Nonnus, Dionysiaca 14.99 chief of the satyrs who came to join Dionysus in the Indian WarNonnus, Dionysiaca 17.196 & 29.257 |
| Babys | Plutarch, Moralia | brother of Marsyas, he challenged Apollo to a music contest and lost. |
| Cissus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | turned into an ivy plant; contested in footrunning with AmpelosNonnus, Dionysiaca 10.400 & 12.190 |
| Gemon | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against IndiaNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.108 |
| Hypsicerus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India;Nonnus, Dionysiaca 14.106 character is likely a fabrication of Nonnus' (name translates to "tall-horn") |
| Iobacchus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11.5, 14.286 |
| Lamis | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against IndiaNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.110 |
| Leneus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | son of Silenus and brother of Astraeus and Maron; a satyr who contested in footrunning with AmpelusNonnus, Dionysiaca 10.400 |
| Lenobius | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against IndiaNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.111 |
| Lycon | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India |
| Lycus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | son of Hermes and Iphthime, and brother of Pherespondus and PronomusNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.112 |
| Maron | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | son of Silenus and brother of Astraeus and Leneus; charioteer of DionysusNonnus, Dionysiaca 15.141, 18.49, 42.20 |
| Marsyas | needs | |
| Napaeus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against IndiaNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.107 |
| Oestrus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India |
| Onthyrius | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | killed by Tectaphus during the Indian WarNonnus, Dionysiaca 30.137 |
| Orestes | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India; character is likely a fabrication of Nonnus' (name translates to "mountain-dweller") |
| Petraeus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against IndiaNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.109 |
| Phereus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India |
| Pherespondus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | herald of Dionysus during the Indian War and son of Hermes and Iphthime, and brother of Lycus and PronomousNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.112 & 18.313 |
| Phlegraeus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India |
| Pithos | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | another satyr killed by TectaphusNonnus, Dionysiaca 30.138 |
| Poemenius | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India; character is likely a fabrication of Nonnus' (name translates to "Pastoral") |
| Pronomus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | son of Hermes and Iphthime, and brother of Lycus and PherespondusNonnus, Dionysiaca 14.113 |
| Pylaieus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | another Satyr killed by TectaphusNonnus, Dionysiaca 30.136 |
| Scirtus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India |
| Silenus | multiple | |
| Thasus | Nonnus, Dionysiaca | one of the leaders of the satyrs who joined the army of Dionysus in his campaign against India; character is likely a fabrication of Nonnus' (name translates to "cult-association") |
| Unnamed Satyr | Ovid, Fasti | father of Ampelus by a NymphOvid, Fasti 3.409 |
| Phales | Aristophanes, The Acharnians | A satyr personification of the phallus and associated with the Dionysian festivities. In the work The Acharnians of Aristophanes, is mentioned in a phallic hymn as Phales raped Thratta the slave of StrymodorusThe Acharnians p. 16. (263 ff.) |
Many names of the satyrs that appear in Nonnos' Dionysiaca are heavily assumed to have been coined by the author, and are nothing more than plot devices with no mythological significance. Four names listed in the epic, when translated, are merely adjectives associated to the character Dionysiaca (1940 translation), footnote on page 480Nonnos, of Panopolis; Frye, Northrop. Marginalia; Rouse, W. H. D. (William Henry Denham), 1863–1950; Rose, H. J. (Herbert Jennings), 1883–1961; Lind, L. R. (Levi Robert), 1906-("Pastoral", "Cult-association", "Tall-horn", and "Mountain-dweller").
The names of the satyrs according to various vase paintings were: Babacchos, Briacchos, Dithyrambos, Demon, Dromis, Echon, Hedyoinos ("Sweet Wine"), Hybris ("Insolence"), Hedymeles, ("Sweet Song"), Comus ("Revelry"), Kissos ("Ivy"), Molkos, Oinos, Oreimachos, Simos ("Snub-nose"), Terpon and Tyrbas ("Rout").
Artists also began to widely represent scenes of nymphs repelling the unwanted advances of amorous satyrs. Scenes of this variety were used to express the dark, beastly side of human sexuality at a remove by attributing that sexuality to satyrs, who were part human and part animal. In this way, satyrs became vehicles of a metaphor for a phenomenon extending far beyond the original narrative purposes in which they had served during earlier periods of Greek history. Some variants on this theme represent a satyr being rebuffed by a hermaphrodite, who, from the satyr's perspective, appears to be a beautiful, young girl. These sculptures may have been intended as kind of sophisticated erotic joke.
The Athenian sculptor Praxiteles's statue Pouring Satyr represented the eponymous satyr as very human-like. The satyr was shown as very young, in line with Praxiteles's frequent agenda of representing deities and other figures as adolescents. This tendency is also attested in the descriptions of his sculptures of Dionysus and the Archer Eros written in the third or fourth century AD by the art critic Callistratus. The original statue is widely assumed to have depicted the satyr in the act of pouring an oenochoe over his head into a cup, probably a kantharos. Antonio Corso describes the satyr in this sculpture as a "gentle youth" and "a precious and gentle being" with "soft and velvety" skin. The only hints at his "feral nature" were his ears, which were slightly pointed, and his small tail.
The shape of the sculpture was an S-shape, shown in three-quarter view. The satyr had short, boyish locks, derived from those of earlier Greek athletic sculpture. Although the original statue has been lost, a representation of the pouring satyr appears in a late classical relief sculpture from Athens and twenty-nine alleged "copies" of the statue from the time of the Roman Empire have also survived. Olga Palagia and J. J. Pollitt argue that, although the Pouring Satyr is widely accepted as a genuine work of Praxiteles, it may not have been a single work at all and the supposed "copies" of it may merely be Roman sculptures repeating the traditional Greek motif of pouring wine at symposium.
The Roman naturalist and encyclopedist Pliny the Elder conflated satyrs with , which he describes using the word satyrus, a Latinized form of the Greek satyros. He characterizes them as "a savage and wild people; distinct voice and speech they have none, but in steed thereof, they keep a horrible gnashing and hideous noise: rough they are and hairie all over their bodies, eies they have red like the houlets owls and toothed they be like dogs."
The second-century Greek Middle Platonism philosopher Plutarch records a legendary incident in his Life of Sulla, in which the soldiers of the Roman general Sulla are reported to have captured a satyr sleeping during a military campaign in Greece in 89 BC. Sulla's men brought the satyr to him and he attempted to interrogate it, but it spoke only in an unintelligible sound: a cross between the neighing of a horse and the bleating of a goat. The second-century Greek travel writer Pausanias reports having seen the tombs of deceased silenoi in Judaea and at Pergamon.Pausanias, The Guide to Greece 6.24.8 Based on these sites, Pausanias concludes that silenoi must be mortal.
The third-century Greek biographer Philostratus records a legend in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana of how the ghost of an satyr was deeply enamored with the women from the local village and had killed two of them.Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 6.26–30 Then, the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana set a trap for it with wine, knowing that, after drinking it, the ghost-satyr would fall asleep forever. The wine diminished from the container before the onlookers' eyes, but the ghost-satyr himself remained invisible. Once all the wine had vanished, the ghost-satyr fell asleep and never bothered the villagers again. Amira El-Zein notes similarities between this story and later Arabic accounts of jinn. The treatise Saturnalia by the fifth-century AD Roman poet Macrobius connects both the word satyr and the name Saturn to the Greek word for "penis". Macrobius explains that this is on account of satyrs' sexual lewdness. Macrobius also equates Dionysus and Apollo as the same deity and states that a festival in honor of Bacchus is held every year atop Mount Parnassus, at which many satyrs are often seen.
Medieval storytellers in Western Europe also frequently conflated satyrs with wild man. Both satyrs and wild men were conceived as part human and part animal and both were believed to possess unrestrained sexual appetites. Stories of wild men during the Middle Ages often had an erotic tone and were primarily told orally by peasants, since the clergy officially disapproved of them. In this form, satyrs are sometimes described and represented in Bestiary, where a satyr is often shown dressed in an animal skin, carrying a club and a serpent. In the Aberdeen Bestiary, the Ashmole Bestiary, and MS Harley 3244, a satyr is shown as a nude man holding a wand resembling a jester's club and leaning back, crossing his legs. Satyrs are sometimes juxtaposed with apes, which are characterized as "physically disgusting and akin to the Devil". In other cases, satyrs are usually shown nude, with enlarged phalli to emphasize their sexual nature. In the Second-Family Bestiary, the name "satyr" is used as the name of a species of ape, which is described as having a "very agreeable face, restless, however, in its twitching movements."
Satyrs occupied a paradoxical, liminal space in Renaissance art, not only because they were part human and part beast, but also because they were both antique and natural. They were of classical origin, but had an iconographical canon of their own very different from the standard representations of gods and heroes. They could be used to embody what Stephen J. Campbell calls a "monstrous double" of the category in which human beings often placed themselves. It is in this aspect that satyrs appear in Jacopo de' Barbari's 1495 series of prints depicting satyrs and naked men in combat and in Piero di Cosimo's Stories of Primitive Man, inspired by Lucretius. Satyrs became seen as "pre-human", embodying all the traits of savagery and barbarism associated with animals, but in human-like bodies. Satyrs also became used to question early modern humanism in ways which some scholars have seen as similar to present-day posthumanism, as in Titian's Flaying of Marsyas ( 1570–1576). The Flaying of Marysas depicts the scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses in which the satyr Marysas is flayed alive. According to Campbell, the people performing the flaying are shown calmly absorbed in their task, while Marsyas himself even displays "an unlikely patience". The painting reflects a broad continuum between the divine and the bestial.
In the seventeenth century, satyrs became identified with great apes. In 1699, the English anatomist Edward Tyson (1651–1708) published an account of his dissection of a creature which scholars have now identified as chimpanzee. In this account, Tyson argued that stories of satyrs, wild men, and other hybrid mythological creatures had all originated from the misidentification of apes or monkeys. The French materialist philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751) included a section titled "On savage men, called Satyrs" in his Oeuvres philosophiques, in which he describes great apes, identifying them with both satyrs and wild men. Many early accounts of the orangutan describe the males as being sexually aggressive towards human women and towards females of its own species, much like classical Greek satyrs. The first scientific name given to this ape was Simia satyrus.
Relationships between satyrs and nymphs of this period are often portrayed as consensual. This trend is exemplified by the 1623 painting Satyr and Nymph by Gerard van Honthorst, which depicts a satisfied satyr and nymph lasciviously fondling each other after engaging in obviously consensual sex. Both are smiling and the nymph is showing her teeth, a sign commonly used by painters of the era to signify that the woman in question is of loose morals. The satyr's tongue is visible as the nymph playfully tugs on his goat beard and he strokes her chin. Even during this period, however, depictions of satyrs uncovering sleeping nymphs are still common, indicating that their traditional associations with rape and sexual violence had not been forgotten.
Satyrs and nymphs provided a classical pretext which allowed sexual depictions of them to be seen as objects of high art rather than mere pornography. The French emperor Napoleon III awarded the Academic art painter Alexandre Cabanel the Legion of Honour, partly on account of his painting Nymph Abducted by a Faun. In 1873, another French Academicist William-Adolphe Bouguereau painted Nymphs and Satyr, which depicts four nude nymphs dancing around "an unusually submissive satyr", gently coaxing him into the water of a nearby stream. This painting was bought that same year by an American named John Wolfe, who displayed it publicly in a prominent location in the bar at the Hoffman House, a hotel he owned on Madison Square and Broadway. Despite its risqué subject, many women came to the bar to view the painting. The painting was soon Mass production on ceramic tiles, porcelain plates, and other luxury items in the United States.
In 1876, Stéphane Mallarmé wrote "The Afternoon of a Faun", a first-person narrative poem about a faun who attempts to kiss two beautiful nymphs while they are sleeping together. He accidentally wakes them up. Startled, they transform into white water birds and fly away, leaving the faun to play his pan pipes alone. Claude Debussy composed a symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune ( Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), which was first performed in 1894., Venus with a Satyr, 19th century, engraving and etching]]The late nineteenth-century German Existentialism philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was either unaware of or chose to ignore the fact that, in all the earliest representations, satyrs are depicted as horse-like. He accordingly defined a satyr as a "bearded" creature "who derived his name and attributes from the goat." Nietzsche excluded the horse-like satyrs of Greek tradition from his consideration entirely and argued that tragedy had originated from a chorus of men dressed up as satyrs or goats ( tragoi). Thus, Nietzsche held that tragedy had begun as a Dionysian activity. Nietzsche's rejection of the early evidence for horse-like satyrs was a mistake his critics severely excoriated him for. Nonetheless, he was the first modern scholar to recognize the full importance of satyrs in Greek culture and tradition, as Dionysian symbols of humanity's close ties to the animal kingdom. Like the Greeks, Nietzsche envisioned satyrs as essentially humans stripped down to their most basic and bestial instincts.
The 1917 Italian silent film Il Fauno, directed by Febo Mari, is about a statue of a faun who comes to life and falls in love with a female model. Fauns appear in the animated dramatization of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (1808) in the 1940 Disney animated film Fantasia. Their goat-legs are portrayed as brightly colored, but their hooves are black. They play the Pan pipes and, like traditional satyrs and fauns, are portrayed as mischievous. One young faun plays hide-and-seek with a unicorn and imitates a statue of a faun atop a pedestal. Though the fauns are not portrayed as overtly sexual, they do assist the in pairing the centaurs into couples. A drunken Bacchus appears in the same scene.
A faun named Mr. Tumnus appears in the classic juvenile fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) by C. S. Lewis. Mr. Tumnus has goat legs and horns, but also a tail long enough for him to carry it draped over his arm to prevent it from dragging in the snow. He is a domesticated figure who lacks the bawdiness and hypersexuality that characterized classical satyrs and fauns. Instead, Mr. Tumnus wears a scarf and carries an umbrella and lives in a cozy cave with a bookshelf with works such as The Life and Letters of Silenus, Nymphs and their Ways, and Is Man a Myth?.
The satyr has appeared in all five editions of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, having been introduced in 1976 in the earliest edition, in Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976),Kuntz, Robert J. and James Ward. Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (TSR, 1976) then in the first edition of the Monster Manual (1977),Gary Gygax. Monster Manual (TSR, 1977) where it is described as a sylvan woodland inhabitant primarily interested in sport such as frolicking, piping, and chasing wood nymphs. The life history of satyrs was further detailed in Dragon No. 155 (March 1990), in "The Ecology of the Satyr".Menzies, Gordon R. "The Ecology of the Satyr." Dragon No. 155 (TSR, 1990) The satyr was later detailed as a playable character race in The Complete Book of Humanoids (1993),Bill Slavicsek. The Complete Book of Humanoids (TSR, 1993) and is later presented as a playable character race again in (1995).Douglas Niles and Dale Donovan. (TSR, 1995) The satyr appears in the Monster Manual for the 3.0 edition.Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2000) Savage Species (2003) presented the satyr as both a race and a playable class.Eckelberry, David, Rich Redman, and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes. Savage Species (Wizards of the Coast, 2003) The satyr appears in the revised Monster Manual for version 3.5 and also appears in the Monster Manual for the 4th edition,Mearls, Mike, Stephen Schubert, and James Wyatt. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2008) and as a playable character race in the Heroes of the Feywild sourcebook (2011).
Matthew Barney's Video art Drawing Restraint 7 (1993) includes two satyrs wrestling in the backseat of a moving limousine. A satyr named Grover Underwood appears in the young adult fantasy novel The Lightning Thief (2005) by American author Rick Riordan, as well as in subsequent novels in the series Percy Jackson & the Olympians. Though consistently referred to as a "satyr", Grover is described as having goat legs, pointed ears, and horns. Grover is not portrayed with the sexually obscene traits that characterized classical Greek satyrs. Instead, he is the loyal protector to the main character Percy Jackson, who is the son of a mortal woman and the god Poseidon.
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