Pitys

The pine is sacred to Pan because when he pursued the nymph Pitys, she turned herself into a pine tree to escape. In this version of the myth, Pitys had chosen the love of Boreas, god of the north wind, over his rival Pan.

Very very interesting story. From the animal and plant calendar markers point of view...

Let me explain what I mean. 

Boreas was the Greek god of winter as well as the god of the north wind...

Winter starts in Oct/Nov (21st of Dec is midwinter for a reason)...

Oct/Nov is marked by the "Old Capricorn", the Goat of Rain. Because this is the time when male ibex goats start their ferocious mating fights...

And because the wet season in Eastern Mediterranean, Levant, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran starts when ibex goats start mating, ibex goat became an animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season...

The anthropomorphisation of the Goat of Rain into God of rain associated with goats started in Neolithic Iran. I talked about this in my post "Goat petroglyphs from Iran". Goat Dude from Tell Brak, dating to c. 3800-3600 BC

Eventually, this goat dude arrived to Europe as Pan.

Pan, who has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat. Whose skin is Pan carrying? Is this "Αιγις" (Aegis),  the goat skin which Zeus carried from Crete?

It just occurred to me. What do you get if you clothe Holy Zeus, the bringer of rain, in goat skin? Holy Ibex Goat, the bringer of rain, of course...

Figurine from Cyprus, depicting Ba’al/Zeus riding a Goat (600-400 BCE):

From my post "Goat riding thunder god"...

Because it marks the beginning of the winter, the goat also became goat of winter...Post "Krampus", which explains the link between Mountain Ibex Goats, Capricorn zodiac sign, Yule Goat, Krampus and all the other Christmas related goat characters and masks

Hence the goat of winter causing frostbites

Serbian fairytale: "I am the life-giving goat, skinned yet not skinned, slaughtered yet not slaughtered, roasted yet not roasted, eaten yet not eaten. My teeth are like stakes, I will bite you in half..."

Scandinavian Yule Goat with long sharp teeth...From my post "Tanngnjostr and Tanngrisnir"...

An illustration by Yuri Vasnetsov from 1956 entitled "Goat". It depicts the scene from Slavic folklore in which goat (of winter) brings spring (basket with flowers) and summer (baby goat).

Anyway, this page, "Goat in European cultures", is a jump page with links to articles about goat animal calendar marker embedded into European mythology, folklore and astrology...

Enough about goats. Oct/Nov is also when pine nut harvest starts in Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia...Hence pine as plant calendar marker for the beginning of winter and the cool/wet half of the year...

Pine nut harvest season

And so...Back to our story. The goat of winter and the god of winter are fighting over a nymph. A nature spirit...And it turns into a pine tree, the plant calendar marker for the beginning of winter...

How cool is this?

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...