What is The Satyrs' Forest (satyrs.eu)?

Updated

The Satyrs' Forest (satyrs.eu) is the personal website of Xanthe, who describes themselves as the steward of these "ancient woods." It is a non-commercial, hand-built collection of creative projects, personal favourites, pagan material, and interactive toys — presented in a playful mix of English, Dutch, and Greek. If you are looking for a service, product, or organisation, this is not it; if you enjoy hypertext curiosities, personal archives, and idiosyncratic web design, it is worth exploring.

Who runs it and what it is

The site opens with a welcome from Xanthe, written in both English and Dutch, inviting visitors to enjoy their stay and "try not to get lost." The framing is deliberately literary: the site is a forest, Xanthe is its keeper, and visitors are travellers. The title itself appears in three forms — "The Satyrs' Forest," "'t Satyrwoud" (Dutch), and the Greek "Θεάματα τῆς Ὕλης" — and this multilingual habit runs throughout the navigation and headings.

It is a personal homepage in the older sense of the word: a place where one person publishes what interests them, rather than content produced for an audience or a market. There are no pricing signals, payment platforms, or commercial links in the site's structure.

What you will find there

The site is organised as a stream of entries, filterable by category. The visible filters are:

  • 💜️ Personal favourites
  • 🎨️ Creative endeavours
  • 🌒️ Paganism
  • 🖱️ Interactives

Entries range from the trivial to the elaborate. Examples drawn from the site's own listing include:

  • Personal logs and lists — "Stuff i've watched recently," "Songs i've cried to," "Dream log 2025," "My predictions for 2024"
  • Creative projects — "The Cult of Phanes," "Są̂qʌk" (described as a constructed language), "My coat of arms," "The Crew of the Ardhanarishvara"
  • Interactive pieces — "A World Clock," "The Matrix of Power" (described as "I can't believe it's not 2048!")
  • Pagan and mythological material — "The Orphic Hymns Online," "Lords of Misrule 2025" (an annual Saturnalia tradition), "A calendrical table"
  • Reference and writing — "The Compendium of Curious Words," "The Hoorn Manual of Style," "One loan word per language"
  • Annual roundups — "The Satyrs' Forest Horny Awards 2025," "The internet's 100 favourite albums 2025," "My favourite films 2025"

There is also a "What's new" section with dated entries and an RSS feed for following changes, plus a linkroll pointing to other sites — for instance, a description of "Mx Tynehorne's cabinet of hypertext curiosities."

How it is presented

Two things stand out about the presentation.

Multilingualism. Headings and navigation appear in English, Dutch, and Greek simultaneously. Section titles like "Sights of the Forest 🖌︎ Wonderen des Wouds Θεάματα τῆς Ὕλης" are typical rather than exceptional. The site's declared language is English (en-GB), but the Dutch and Greek are integral to its character rather than translations bolted on.

A stated anti-copyright position. One of the main sections is titled "Copyrightn't 🧠︎ Auteursrechtn't Πνευματικὴ ἀνιδιοκτησία," and a February entry is labelled "Public domain declaration · No rights reserved." The site explicitly frames its content as free of copyright restrictions. If you want to reuse something from it, that declaration is the relevant statement — though as with any such declaration, it applies to what the site's author actually controls.

Practical notes

  • Language: Primarily English, with substantial Dutch and Greek throughout.
  • Cost: No pricing, payment, or subscription signals appear anywhere in the site's structure.
  • Updates: Dated entries and an RSS feed are provided for following changes.
  • Nature: Personal, non-commercial, and idiosyncratic. There is no product, service, or organisation behind it — just one person's corner of the web.

If you arrived here expecting a company, a tool, or a formal resource, you will not find one. If you arrived because you like the sound of a "cabinet of hypertext curiosities" kept by someone who writes in three languages and declares no rights reserved, start with the "What's new" list and follow whatever catches your eye.