Once upon a time the nymph Daphne was pursued by the sun god Apollo, who wanted to take her for his lover. In her desperation to escape, she ran to her father, who was a river god, and begged him to help her. He changed her into the laurel tree to prevent her from being ravished. Apollo, disappointed in his conquest, started cutting off her branches to crown himself with. What Daphne thought of this will never be known, as once she'd become a tree, there was no going back. It's not really a choice most people are confronted with: "Would you rather be raped, or stuck as a tree for the rest of your life?" But somehow, it's always seemed to me that the former would be a little more possible to recover from. Hard to say...

Photos Copyright 2006 by Thanate Salamandra