The Great Pan
by Scott Paul


...That dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air.
Full of spirits melancholy
And eternity's despair;
And they heard the words it said -
Pan is dead - Great Pan is dead,
Pan, Pan is dead.
"A Musical Instrument," 1859

It has been almost 150 years since poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote that Great Pan is dead. Pan has long been a symbol of the wild-at-heart and the carefree. But just who is Pan, where did he come from, and why does he evoke such thoughts?

Among the most recognized of all the Greek gods, Pan is described as a satyr. Dion Fortune called Pan the "Goat Foot God." He has the body of a man, and the hindquarters of a goat. Pan was an Arcadian god of the shepherds. With the arrival of the Olympian gods, new myths were told to explain his presence. Pan's relationship to the gods is varied. One myth tells that Pan is a son of Kronos and foster brother of Zeus. In another story, he is the son of Hermes and the nymph Dryope. Some have said that his mother was Queen Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, and that his father was all of her suitors. Whatever Pan's origins, he is associated with bee-keeping, music, fertility, and dance. He is also god of prophecy. He is best known, however, for his sexual escapades.

The nymph Syrinx escaped his passion for her by having herself turned into a clump of reeds by the gods. Pan plucked a handful of the reed and created his panpipes. He remembers her with his music. Pan seduced the nymph Pitys away from Boreas, the north wind. The goddess Gaia changed Pitys into a pine tree to save her from Boreas' wrath. Pan seduced the goddess Selene when he changed into a white ram and lured her into the forest.

The worship of Pan centered on the region of Arcadia until the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Greece was being invaded by the Persians, and Athens sent a runner to Sparta for help. On his return trip. the runner Pheidippides encountered Pan in Arcadia. Making his presence known, Pan told Pheidippides that if the Arcadians would worship him he would aid them in battle. It is said that Pan's cry caused a panic amongst the Persian army. In Athens a shrine to Pan was built in the wild places below the acropolis.

Pan is unique among the other Greek gods in that he is the only one with a story of his death. Plutarch wrote of a merchant ship that was plying its trade amongst the Greek isles. When the ship neared the isle of Paxi, a great voice called, asking the captain to tell a neighboring island that "Great Pan is Dead." The death of Pan seemed to signal the death of all of the gods. In Greek, Pan literally means "all."

But Pan is not dead. Authors have immortalized him up to present day. He even was a cartoon sidekick to Hercules in a popular Walt Disney Movie. Pan has become the embodiment of all things wild and carefree. He is now a cultural icon in the modern age. In short, Pan lives.

~from Llewellyn's Magical Almanac

I thought pans labyrinth was an awesome movie

I liked that movie too.