Apollo and Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree. The myth of Apollo and Daphne has been examined as a battle between chastity (Daphne) and sexual desire (Apollo). As Apollo lustfully pursues Daphne, she is saved through her metamorphosis and confinement into the laurel tree which can be seen as an act of eternal chastity. Daphne is forced to sacrifice her body and become the laurel tree as her only form of escape from the pressures of Apollo's constant sexual desires. Apollo crafts himself a wreath out of her laurel branches and turning her symbol of chastity into a cultural symbol for him
The Wood Nymph the "erotic harmonic vocabulary" of "Tristan und Isolde" in the third section and the "motive of the forbidden question" from "Lohengrin" in the funereal march from the finale. In light of Sibelius's "Nietzschean response" to Wagner's operas (initially enamored, Sibelius by July 1894 had repudiated Wagner's ideas as "calculated" and "manufactured"), such observations are of particular interest in that they illustrate the extent to which Sibelius, at the time of "The Wood Nymph", had not yet succeeded in breaking with the German master. A few musicologists have speculated that "The Wood Nymph" is potentially autobiographical. Murtomäki, most notably, has argued