Fauns and Satyrs



Fauns and Satyrs, while originally quite different, have often been fused together, both in the original myths and modern fiction. (Which is why they share a page.)

Originally, Satyrs had the tail and ears of either horses or donkeys, though later they acquired goat legs, becoming almost identical with fauns. In earlier Greek art art they were portrayed as quite ugly, though later they became more youthful and graceful.

They were associated with sex, wine, and pipe playing. They were obsessed with and would pursue the nymphs, and would frequently dance with them. Despite their shy and cowardly nature, they could be dangerous.

The faun was a forest god manifestation of forest and animal spirits, it was associated with nature, and it could inspire fear in man, but it also could guide them, if it felt so inclined.

Other goat people include the Greek god Pan, his Roman counterpart Faunus/Inuus, and in some depictions, Satan (which, coincidentally, sounds a lot like "satyr").

See also Our Centaurs Are Different.

Anime and Manga

 * Caesar Clown's Gas Mask Mooks in One Piece are actually this..

Film

 * Disney's Hercules has Phil the satyr, he was Hercules friend and trainer. He was also quite perverted, but being a Disney film he went through Bowdlerization to a Chivalrous Pervert.
 * Disney's Fantasia also includes fauns.
 * Pans Labyrinth has a faun.
 * Percy Jackson's Black Best Friend Grover, at least in the movie.
 * Allegro Non Troppo features an eldery satyr chasing after nymphs, with no success.
 * In Manos the Hands of Fate, Torgo is meant to be one, but instead just looks like a guy with wonky knees.
 * What little we in see of in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale implies him to be a creature like this.

Literature

 * Mr. Tumnus, a faun in the The Chronicles of Narnia. Also, other fauns are mentioned thoughout the series, along with satyrs. The difference between them is that fauns have long tails, and satyrs have goat tails. The recent films expanded this difference, and made fauns human from the waist up with regular got tails, and satyrs looking more like human-sized goats that walk on their hind legs.
 * In Xanth, Fauns love chasing nymphs and simulating summoning the stork with them.
 * Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel called The Marble Faun, though the faun there is the statue by Praxiteles, which is almost totally human in form. The faun has a human counterpart, however, in the novel's Donatello (no, not that one), Count of Monti Beni.
 * Martin Silenus from Hyperion undergoes Space Opera style body modifications to turn himself into a satyric figure.
 * One story by Thomas Burnett Swann (who apparently wrote a lot of mythology themed stories), was about a human's friendship with a faun, and portrayed them as having Blue and Orange Morality.
 * In the Camp Half-Blood Universe, Satyrs and Fauns are considered as the same things.
 * Satyrs appear in the Fablehaven books. They have some of the qualities of the original satyrs (they're often seen trying to impress girls, and at one point, they offer Seth wine), but they're also TV addicts.
 * In the book Through the Ice the character Rame is in self-exile from the community of satyrs because he considers himself a faun. While he is less obsessed with sex and thus somewhat more acceptable to humans, his fellow satyrs treat him like a pervert.
 * The Orphans Tales series features the Gaselli, who are obviously enough more related to Gazelle, but have a similar motif. A race of nature oriented beings with cloven hooves. They tend to be more interested in food than sex however.
 * Eshkol and her family represent more traditional version of this trope.
 * The Firebringer Trilogy has "pans," which are basically blue-skinned fauns.
 * Kate Forsyth's Witches of Eileanan universe has "satyricorns." While they mostly look like the traditional model in appearance (except for being seven feet tall, having a variable number and arrangement of horns, and having six mammaries) and behavior (albeit towards the nastier side), they zigzag the trope by being primarily female.

Mythology

 * The original Fauns and Satyrs.
 * Glaistigs from Scottish mythology are similar to satyrs. Apparently, they were exclusively female.
 * The Greek nature god Pan.

Other

 * Mallarme's poem, the tone-poem based on the poem, and the ballet based on the tone-poem, all sharing a name: L'Apres-midi d'un faun (The Afternoon Of A Faun).

Religion

 * Satan and his demons are often depicted similarly to fauns, (though never in The Bible) having cloven hooves and horns, with the addition of a long tail with a arrow head shape at the end, (sometimes) bat wings, and a bright red color. See Big Red Devil.
 * "Satyr" is the translation of the Hebrew se'irim in the King James Bible. According to The Other Wiki, a more literal translation is "hairy ones."

Tabletop RPG

 * Dungeons and Dragons Has satyrs that are a combination of the fauns and satyrs of Greek Mythology.
 * Shadowrun. Both male and female satyrs have large curling horns like a bighorn sheep. They're implied to be the Awakened version of the wild goat. Their saliva can ferment sugary liquids into alcohol.
 * Another type of Satyr exists, as a racial variant of the Ork Metatype.
 * Beastmen in Warhammer are about all the darkest parts of this put together.
 * Broos in Rune Quest.
 * There are also actual satyrs. Mistaking the two for one another is not a good idea. The Broos are chaos creatures that breed by raping any creatures that are available (all Broos are male), and their offspring takes features of those creatures. Farm animals, especially goats are apparently most easily available for them.
 * In GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, Saturs are a possible character race, which includes females as well.

Theater

 * The famous Greek tragedies originally came in tetralogies. The first three were traditional tragedies following some sort of story arch. The final play was a Satyr play which satirized the first three (though "satyr" and "satire" aren't actually etymologically related) and also made tasteless jokes about well-known people. They were so-called because the actors wore fur leggings and big fake leather cocks, like satyrs.

Video Games

 * Satyrs also show up in Dragon Quest VIII, in the bestiary. They use their flutes as a weapon.
 * Satyrs in the War Craft universe are half-demonic corrupted night elves, and Fauns are half-daughters of the Demigod Cenarius.
 * Spyro the Dragon: Ripto's Rage/Gateway to Glimmer has both fauns and satyrs. In addition to primary character Elora, there are humanoid-looking fauns and satyrs in the Fracture Hills, and more monster-y looking fauns in the Magma Cone. Exactly what differentiates them is not entirely clear.
 * It's also worth noting that the Fracture Hills fauns, and to a lesser extant Elora, aren't all that humanoid to begin with. The ones in Fracture Hills in particular look more like anthropomorphic wolves with goat legs.
 * The fauns are all female in this game, and the satyrs are male.
 * Diablo has Goatmen, which are actually demons and not related to either goats or humans.
 * Goat demons appears also in the second Devil May Cry game as Elite Mooks.
 * The satyrs in Will Rock are mooks armed with bows.
 * Lucifer in Dantes Inferno
 * One of the two races of Beastmen in Radiant Historia, the appropriately-named Satyros, take this form.
 * Satyrs feature in the God of War series as some of the toughest regular enemies.

Web Original

 * Though his species is named "the Dashkin", Bitey in Brackenwood is quite similar to a faun, with goat legs and horns, though his face is furry. He is also extremely fast and an amoral trickster.