DRYAD

DRYAD
"Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees, and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon—but of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets; the deserted tomb of the Hydes, an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant had been laid within its black recesses many decades before my birth."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Tomb

"This (Dryad) was the name of a group of nymphs in the classical mythology of Greece and Rome. The Dryad's name is derived from the Greek Drys, which means oak. These nymphs were the guardian spirits of trees, groves, and woods, and would punish any
mortals offering harm."

"In the classical mythology of Greece and Rome, this (Hamadryad) is the name of nymphs of the trees who inhabited and were part of the trees they protected. They are described as being beautiful females to the waist, and the lower parts of their bodies are the trunk of the tree and its roots,"
Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins