By Kitty Smith/The Conversation Could you ever be truly alone in the woods of ancient Greece or Rome? According to myth, the ancient world was filled with wild animals, terrifying monsters, and mischievous deities. Among them were nymphs: semi-divine female figures that personified elements of the natural world. But nymphs offer us more than just stories of sexy nature spirits. They can reveal how ancient people thought about their world and connected with their landscape through mythology. Personifying elements of nature Nymph was a broad category in myth. It encompassed almost every semi-divine woman and girl in myth, including a number of goddesses. The sea goddess Thetis and the underworld river Styx were both sea nymphs as well as goddesses
