Wood God

Wood Gods were tree spirits of the same species as wood nymphs, but were male in physical form. They inhabited and were spiritually tied to trees like oaks, elms, hollies, and rowans, and would die if their trees were cut down. Like the wood nymphs, they were capable of leaving their trees and assuming physical bodies or using their trees as their bodies. One description of wood god is given in Prince Caspian, in that the wood god of an oak tree would look like a wizened old man with warts and hair growing out of the warts. Wood Gods were seen in the coronation where King Frank I and Queen Helen became the First King and Queen of Narnia. Wood Gods were also mentioned where they aided the Old Narnians to fight the Telmarine army. The wood gods of the trees in Lantern Waste were slaughtered along with their wood nymph sisters when the Calormenes chopped down their trees during the Calormene Conquest. Wood Gods appear in the BBC adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as members of Aslan's army. They appear as male actors dressed in arboreal looking tights, greenish or grey skin paint, and wearing leaves around their heads. A wood god also appears in a deleted scene on the Prince Caspian DVD. The effects were unfinished, but it shows a wood god forming from a pile of leaves. He walks towards the Pevensies and Trumpkin, but lets out a scream and explodes(meaning that he is dead because his tree was cut down.).


 * Although in mythology, the only thing close to a male version of a nymph was a river god to a naiad, Lewis may have created the wood gods as his own creations, or perhaps he drew inspiration from the Green Man of Celtic Mythology.