Fauns

The Myths

Roman and Greek Myths

Ancient Italian Farmers began to make offerings to Faunus (a hypothetical deity of forests and fields at first, later becoming an exclusively woodland deity) somewhere very roughly around 1000 BC. Anecdotal evidence indicated that the processes did help their crops, but serious scientific study would not be performed until... well... ever.
At the time Faunus was pictured as a powerful human with an entourage of helpers. Farmers not being much for poetry, much less sculpting and painting, the physical description of Faunus was left up to interpretation by later bards.
Around the 2^nd century BC Romans and Greeks began to conflagrate the Roman god Faunus and the Greek god Pan, with a liberal sprinkling of the Greek god Dionysus, or at least his henchmen, the Satyrs. After that point Faunus (and the other gods) was believed to have horns on his head and optionally other horse and goat-like features below the waist. The descriptions by sculptors and poets vary so wildly, that historians may assume that Faunus was believed to be able to shift forms from completely human to the resemblance of his servants, to a full animal form. His wild and impulsive fauns indicate that his personality would fit well with a shapeshifter god.
The fauns who attended to Faunus were half-man, half goat, all party-goer. In fact nearly every representation of festivals and celebrations among all the Greeko-Roman gods were shown to be awash with happy fauns (and the more powerful and responsible nymphs of course) playing music and drinking alcohol. They were woodland spirits of much less than godlike power who personifed the most optimistic and romantic views of how happy, loving, and care-free human men would be if they paid less attention to their judgements and worries and obeyed their instincts of the moment. They were a metaphorical image of the triumph of desire over willpower, of instinct over theory.
In the Hellenistic and Romantic periods, fauns were found frolicing without being directly in service to any god of the pantheon, just having a good old time wherever they could be found.

Historical Celebrations

An example of the pure joy of living without worries and rational thought of consequences which Faunus and his fauns portrayed can be found in his holiday in February in Rome, called Lupercalia, celebrating the fertility of springtime soon coming. The most notable tradition was that young men, eligible bachelors of the city, would dress as fauns (bare chested with inexpensive goat-skin breeches), get good and liquored up, dance over to the particular eligible maidens of their fancy, and (putting all shyness, shame, and fear of rejection aside) whip her with a strip of soft goat skin with luxurious fur. Those maidens who had interest (see the phrase, "Not Mr. Right, but Mr. Right-Now,") would (probably pretending) allow themselves to be whipped into a wild frenzy (a mildly sado-masochistic sexual frenzy), and dance away with the lucky fellow for a night of merrymaking and debauchery.

Historical Fact

Though actual fauns as a race were mere metaphor before 900-1000AD, anomalously advanced genetic engineers successfully reproduced the myth in real life on the island of Tiber, Italy, (also spelled Tibur). They were designed per the myths to be artists of music and poetry who loved the woodlands and loved solitude as much as festivals when persuing their art.
After 1000AD, struggling artists went on pilgrimmages to Tibur hoping to encounter a faun. Experiences varied. Some found nothing but natural sylvan beauty to inspire them. Some reported meeting a faun who helped them work out a tune or a verse or a composition. Others reported seeing a joyful party of musical whimsy and getting carried away with the revelry for the entire night or in some cases for an entire year and a day. Though the price might be a year of one's life, the treasured verses and tunes inspired by the fauns were said to be unrivaled.
Later in the 21st century a woman named Sapphire Circe allegedly found three surviving youthful fauns who she said assisted her in her adventures. She noted a previously unreported trait of fauns: that they suffer from a condition called Adult Attention Defecit Disorder, which gave them difficulty multitasking and keeping responsibilities, but also gave them the ability to focus on a puzzle or a mystery to the exclusion of all else including eating and drinking until it was solved.

Side Note:

Inuus, the Roman god of sexual intercourse is thought by many historians to have been Faunus in disguise, judging by comments in nearly every appearance of Inuus in various forms of art.