I-Thou-Nymph: a relational approach to ancient Greek religious devotion

Cults of the nymphs were both popular and extremely widespread in the ancient Greek countryside and it was possible for individuals to build significantly close relationships with local nymphs. The term used to describe such people was ‘nympholept’ (‘one captured by the nymphs’) and we know some of their names and the locations of their cults; scholars describe the nympholepts as exhibiting ‘devotion’. This essay explores and challenges current interpretations of nympholepsy. Drawing on the work of Scott Atran, it investigates the behaviours of the nympholepts in relational terms, as encompassing mental, physical and emotional dimensions. Using ecological cognitive approaches, and the I-Thou and I-It dichotomies of the philosopher Martin Buber, it argues that the devotion of the nympholepts was a process of making sense of the environment, in which there was profound entanglement between mortal and space, place and nymph, nymph and mortal.