In nearly all parts of the world, as at nearly all periods of history, we find evidences of a belief in the existence of wood-spirits and tree-spirits, which, however they may differ in outward form, are strangely similar in their general characteristics. It cannot be asserted of _all_ these beings that they were regarded as the actual spirits of individual trees, connected with them as closely as a man’s soul is with his body, but it is emphatically true of some of them. To the class of wood-spirits as a whole belong certain at least of the _jinni_ of Arabia, the woodland spirits of Greek and Roman mythology, and the wild men and elves of European folk-lore, besides the tree-inhabiting spirits of various uncivilised races. Though not always sharply demarcated from the gods, they differ from them, as a rule, in being regarded and spoken of generically, and in not having stated relations with man. Their alliances are rather with trees, plants, and animals, whose growth and prosperity are often believed to be under their protection, and their presence is often assumed to be expressed in natural phenomena, in the mysterious sounds of the woods, and in the fury of the storm. To man they are frequently unfriendly, and numerous observances, still practised in uncivilised parts, have arisen from the belief that it was necessary to propitiate their favour. Broadly speaking, their friendliness to man is directly proportionate to their human semblance, and this in its turn would seem to depend on the extent to which man has been able to conquer the dangers of the regions where they dwell. The farther back they are traced the more animal-like and inhuman their appearance. They preceded the gods and outlasted them, flourishing in times when these were still animal and totemistic, and retaining their animal characteristics long after the gods had become anthropomorphic. To the peasant mind there was, perhaps, no very clear distinction between the two classes, and the line between them has never been an unpassable one, for demons may develop into gods, just as gods may degenerate into demons. It is not claimed that all, or indeed most demons were tree-spirits in their origin, but a large class of them at any rate were closely associated with vegetable life and the phenomena that foster or threaten it. Chaldaean mythology recognised, side by side with gods emphatically human, a class of fabulous monsters who were essentially demons and inferior spirits. There is not much evidence to couple these monsters with trees, but in one of the Babylonian hymns the aid of the gods is invoked against a terrible demon who “makes all creatures hurry in fear,” and of whom it is stated that “his hand is the storm-demon, his eye is filled with the shadow of the forest, the sole of his foot is the lullub-tree.”[115]