Pan in Folklore | The Faeries and Folklore Podcast

ByRonel Janse van Vuuren
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Episode 212: Irascible Immortals: Pan

The folklore of Pan in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing.

Transcript

You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.

I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With nearly a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.

This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.

Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.

This episode is brought to you by my Irascible Immortals series, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. They’ve been alive forever. They’ve been bored for some time. And now they’re showing it. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/my-books/the-irascible-immortals-series for more.

We’re continuing our exploration of the Immortals.

Today’s faery: Pan

Folklore in a nutshell by Ronel

Pan is the son of Hermes and a nymph, though scholars argue which one. He is half man, half goat – a satyr. He is the god of shepherds, hunters, meadows, forests and the mountain wilds. He is usually the “god of wild places”. He was mostly worshipped in rural areas.

He wasn’t known to be kind to nymphs, despite enjoying their company. When Pitys fled his advances, she was turned into a pine tree. When Syrinx escaped, she was turned into a clump of reeds – which Pan cut and turned into his famous reed pipes. And Echo, after her disastrous time with Narcissus, was cursed to only repeat sounds in the mountains. He also lusted after Selene, the personification of the moon.

Whenever someone entered a place protected by Pan, they were consumed with panic and fled. The ancient Greeks believed that the dread felt when alone in a forest is due to Pan who doesn’t like people disrupting the tranquillity of nature. Apparently he scared Persian forces with a terrifying shriek and had them flee back to their own lands.

He embodies primal instinct, which is why he is one of the most powerful gods. He represents the whimsical and the dangerous aspects of the natural world.

When a sailor misheard someone yelling across the water that “The Great Pan is Dead”, many took it to heart as this message was spread across the ancient world. As natural places had to make place for man-made fields, houses and more, people took it as a sign that Pan had given up protecting the wild places of the world.

Origin of the fae: Pan

Just as folklore says, Pan is a fun loving guy who sticks to the undisturbed places in nature. He rarely hangs out with anyone not who isn’t a nature nymph or satyr. He’s half man, half goat – a satyr in essence – and the son of Hermes and a nymph. He’s the god of nature, fertility and wild places. Whenever someone enters the protected wild places, they experience panic. He took the cry “the great Pan is dead” as permission to stop hanging out with other gods and just do what he wanted to. As Industrialism took over the world, he still reminisces about the past when the world was verdure.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode of the faeries and folklore podcast and that you’ve learned something new about faeries.

Remember that you can get a transcript of this episode in the description. If you’re new to the podcast, why not go and grab your free copy of Unseen, the second book in the Faery Tales series, on my website ronelthemythmaker.com? Loads of folklore, magic and danger await! Take care!

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A character card from "The Faerie Mythos" series titled "PAN" by Ronel the Mythmaker. The image depicts the Greek god Pan, with goat-like legs and horns, sitting on a mossy rock in a lush forest and playing a pan flute, surrounded by deer and small animals. The top section features a parchment-textured bar with wax seals from "From The Folklore Archive" on the sides, and the text is displayed in black.

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