Geography/Culture: Celtic: Gallic, British and Irish Druidism.
Linguistic notes: Welsh: Derwydd, `Oak-seer', may be etymologically connected. (In all Celtic languages the word for trees means letters). See also Dryad Linguistic notes. Related English words: Druid, Dryad, rhodendron, tree.
Description: Goddess of birth, insanity, death, immortality and metamphycosis; Mother of the Beth-Luis-Nion (Irish tree-calendar alphabet); Inspirer of the study of the stars and their motions, the earth and the physical sciences; Queen of divination (from clouds, bird song, death pangs of human sacrificial victims) and of inspiration (from the rustling of leaves); Matroness of poets, healers and magicians. {This description is extrapolated from descriptions of Druidism since I can find little other about Her}.
To Whom are sacred: tree grove sanctuaries (especially oak); fir; oak; yew; mistletoe; wren (from whose song in particular auguries were taken); white bull (sacrifice); human sacrifice; golden sickle; Ogham letters; {perhaps spiral patterns}.
Festival: 26 December (Christianised as St. Stephen's Day, a gold-crested wren hunted to death on that day).
Titles, Variants, etc.
Sources: Encyc Brit v8 597; IGEL 213; Graves WG 38, 142, 205, 191.
Geography/Culture: Greek.
Linguistic notes: Greek: delta-rho-upsilon-sigma, (drys), originally a tree, later especially the oak. Delta-rho-upsilon-alpha-sigma, (dryas), a nymph who inhabits groves and forests - Her life was bound up with Her tree. Related English word: tree.
Titles, Variants, etc.
Source: IGEL 212.
Geography/Culture: Greek: Mount Oeta, Pegae.
Linguistic notes: Greek: delta-rho-upsilon-sigma, (drys), tree, especially the oak.
Description: Virgin Mother Goddess of oak-groves, rain, rain-making magic and [perhaps] death and immortality.
To Whom are sacred: oak; poplar; woodpecker (whose tapping is held to portend wet weather and whose barbed tounge is also Her symbol); fountain (in which She, in Her priestess incarnation, bathes to renew Her virginity); spiral patterns (as of the wood-peckers' spiral climb round the oak searching for insects); annual king-sacrifice.
Male Associate: Son: Amphissus by seducer Apollo disguised as a tortoise who turned into a serpent (probably indicates supercession of an oak-cult by a cult of his). Some say She also mothered Pan by Hermes. She is associated with Hylas whom She was said to have abducted (ie. taken to the otherworld) for his name was probably the title of the annually sacrificed king.
Titles, Variants, etc.
Sources: Graves GMv1 38, 193; Graves GMv2 231; Graves WG 355, 358, 400.
Geography/Culture: Greek.
Linguistic note: Greek: hama-, together with, at the same time as. -drys, originally a tree, later especially the oak.
Description: Nymph Goddess; She Who inhabits groves and forests - Her life is bound up with Her tree; She Who is the life energy of the tree She inhabits, especially when that tree forms part of a forest, wood or grove; She Who is especially fond of oak-trees.
To Whom are sacred: trees; [oxygen; rainfall].
Titles, Variants, etc.
Source: IGEL/40, 212.