Daphne At this moment Apollo's attention becomes engaged, and he begins his own pursuit. Daphne, fleeing to escape Apollo's advances, prays to Zeus to help. Zeus turns her into laurel tree. Parthenius' modern editor remarks on the rather awkward transition, linking two narratives. "Why should she wish to escape? Because she is Artemis Daphnaia, the god's sister," observed the Freudian anthropologist Géza Róheim, and Joseph Fontenrose concurs; boldly stating such a one-to-one identity doubtless oversimplifies the picture: "the equation of Artemis and Daphne in the transformation myth itself clearly cannot work". The laurel became sacred to Apollo, and crowned the victors
The Wood Nymph the verses", has echoed Tawaststjerna in wondering what might have been had Sibelius returned in his maturity to "The Wood Nymph", as with "". Finnish composer Kalevi Aho's response has been similar, calling the ballade "an interesting work" in need of "more polishing". Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, however, has championed the ballad. "It's a tremendous piece," Vänskä has said in interview. "He [Sibelius] never managed to revise it, but nothing is wrong with the music. Sibelius never forbade performance of "The Wood Nymph"." Stylistically, scholars have detected in "The Wood Nymph" the influence of Richard Wagner. Murtomäki, for example, discerns