Countrymen and farmers . . . saw the world as charged with numen, an outpouring of the divine. (Numen literally means a nod — deities need only nod to get things done.) This numen was embodied in the nature spirits who inhabited the landscape — every spring, lake, hill, valley, rock, and tree had its caretaker — and the sometimes barely personified gods who presided over human life.
— Jennifer Westwood, On Pilgrimage