(formed of ἀξον, together, and ὕπαξον, dryad, from ὑπάξον, oak), in Antiquity, certain fabulous deities revered amongst the ancient heathens, and believed to preside over woods and forests, and to be enclosed under the bark of oaks. The Hamadryades were supposed to live and die with the trees which they were attached to, as is observed by Servius on Virgil (Eclog. x. ver. 62), after Mnesimachus, the scholiast of Apollonius, who mentions other traditions relating to the same subject. The poets, however, frequently confound the Hamadryades with the Naiads, Napsee, and rural nymphs in general. (See Catullus, Carm. lxviii. ver. 23; Ovid, Fast. iv. 229; Met. i. ver. 695, xiv. ver. 628; Propertius, Eleg. xx. 32; Virg. Ec. x. ver. 64; Georg. iv. ver. 382, 383.) Festus calls them Querquetulane, as having issued or sprung from oaks. An ancient poet, Pherecicus (Athenaeus, lib. iii.), calls the vine, fig-tree, and other fruit-trees, hamadryades, from the name of their mother the oak.