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In Greek mythology
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, the Naiads or Naiades (?a??de? from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 ??e??, "to flow," and ??µa, "running water") were a type of nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
 who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks.

They are distinct from river gods, who embodied rivers, and the very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna
Lerna

In classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of Argos. Its site near the village Myloi, Argolis at the Argolic Gulf is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when Heracles killed it, as Heracles#Se...
 in the Argolid.






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Naiad1
In Greek mythology
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, the Naiads or Naiades (?a??de? from the Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
 ??e??, "to flow," and ??µa, "running water") were a type of nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
 who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks.

They are distinct from river gods, who embodied rivers, and the very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna
Lerna

In classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of Argos. Its site near the village Myloi, Argolis at the Argolic Gulf is most famous as the lair of the Lernaean Hydra, the chthonic many-headed water snake, a creature of great antiquity when Heracles killed it, as Heracles#Se...
 in the Argolid. Naiads were associated with fresh water, as the Oceanids were with saltwater and the Nereids
Nereids

In Greek mythology, the Nereids are sea nymphs, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris . They often accompany Poseidon and are always friendly and helpful towards sailors fighting perilous storms....
 specifically with the Mediterranean; but because the Greeks thought of the world's waters as all one system, which percolated in from the sea in deep cavernous spaces within the earth, there was some overlap. Arethusa
Arethusa (mythology)

Arethusa means "the waterer". She was a nymph and daughter of Nereus , and later became a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily, Sicily....
, the nymph of a spring, could make her way through subterranean flows from the Peloponnesus, to surface on the island of Sicily
Sicily

Sicily is an Autonomous regions with special statute of Italy. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at 25,708 km? and currently has just over five million inhabitants....
.

Mythology

The essence of a naiad was bound to her spring, so if a naiad's body of water dried, she died.

They were often the object of archaic local cults, worshipped as essential to humans. Boys and girls at coming-of-age ceremonies dedicated their childish locks to the local naiad of the spring. In places like Lerna their waters' ritual cleansings were credited with magical medical properties. Animals were ritually drowned
Sacrifice

Sacrifice is commonly known as the practice of offering food, objects , or the lives of animals or people to the deity as an act of propitiation or worship....
 there. Oracles might be situated by ancient springs.

Naiads could be dangerous: Hylas
Hylas

In Greek mythology, Hylas was the son of King Theiodamas of the Dryopians. Other sources such as Ovid state that Hylas' father was Heracles and his mother was the nymph Melite, or that his mother was the wife of Theiodamus, whose adulterous affair with Heracles caused the war between him and her husband....
 of the Argo
Argo

In Greek mythology, the Argo was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece....
's crew was lost when he was taken by naiads fascinated by his beauty (illustration, above left). The naiads were also known to exhibit jealous tendencies. Theocritus
Theocritus

Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC....
's story of naiad jealousy was that of a shepherd, Daphnis
Daphnis

In Greek mythology, Daphnis was a son of Hermes and a Sicily nymph. A shepherd and flutist, he was the inventor of pastoral poetry. A naiads fell in love with him, but he was not faithful to her....
, who was the lover of Nomia
Nomia

Nomia may refer to:*Nomia, Laconia in Greece*Nomia *Nomia , a genus of bees...
; Daphnis had on several occasions been unfaithful to Nomia and as revenge she permanently blinded him. Salmacis
Salmacis

In Greek mythology, Salmacis was an atypical naiad who rejected the ways of the virginal Culture of Greece goddess Artemis in favor of vanity and idleness....
 forced the youth Hermaphroditus
Hermaphroditus

In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus or Hermaphroditos was the child of Aphrodite and Hermes. Born a remarkably handsome boy, he was transformed into an androgynous being by united with the nymph Salmacis....
 into a carnal embrace and, when he sought to get away, fused with him.

The Naiads were either daughters of Zeus
Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
 or various Oceanids, but a genealogy for such ancient, ageless creatures is easily overstated. The water nymph associated with particular springs was known all through Europe in places with no direct connection with Greece, surviving in the Celtic
Celt

Celts , is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic languages. The term is also used in a wider sense to describe the Modern Celts of those peoples, notably those who participate in a Celtic culture....
 wells of northwest Europe that have been rededicated to Saints, and in the medieval Melusine
Melusine

Melusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit#Metaphysical and metaphorical uses of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers....
.

Walter Burkert points out, "When in the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
 [xx.4–9] Zeus calls the gods into assembly on Mount Olympus, it is not only the well-known Olympians
Twelve Olympians

The Twelve Olympians or younger gods, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal Greek Godss of the Greek pantheon , residing atop Mount Olympus, having supplanted the Titan or older gods in the greek mythogical narrative....
 who come along, but also all the nymphs and all the rivers; Okeanos alone remains at his station," (Burkert 1985), Greek hearers recognized this impossibility as the poet's hyperbole
Hyperbole

Hyperbole comes from ancient Greek "?pe?????" and is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is rarely meant to be taken literally....
, which proclaimed the universal power of Zeus over the ancient natural world: "the worship of these deities," Burkert confirms, "is limited only by the fact that they are inseparably identified with a specific locality."

Interpretation


When a mythic king is credited with marrying a naiad and founding a city, Robert Graves
Robert Graves

Robert Ranke Graves was an England poet, translator and novelist. During his long life, he produced more than 140 works. He was the son of the Anglo-Irish writer Alfred Perceval Graves and Amalie von Ranke, a niece of the famous German historian Leopold von Ranke....
 offers a sociopolitical reading: the new arriving Hellenes justify their presence by taking to wife the naiad of the spring, so, in the back-story of the myth of Aristaeus
Aristaeus

A minor god in Greek mythology, which we read largely through Athenian writers, Aristaeus or Aristaios , "ever close follower of the flocks", was the culture hero credited with the discovery of many useful arts, including bee-keeping; he was the son of Apollo and the huntress Cyrene ....
, Hypseus, a king of the Lapiths wed Chlidanope, a naiad, who bore him Cyrene
Cyrene (mythology)

In Greek mythology, as recorded in Pindar's 9th Pythian ode, Cyrene was the daughter of Hypseus, King of the Lapiths. When a lion attacked her father's sheep, Cyrene wrestled with the lion....
. In parallels among the Immortals, the loves and rapes of Zeus, according to Graves' readings, record the supplanting of ancient local cults by Olympian ones (Graves 1955, passim). Aristaeus had more than ordinary mortal experience with the naiads: when his bees died in Thessaly
Thessaly

Thessaly is one of the 13 Peripheries of Greece of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 Prefectures of Greece. The capital of the periphery and traditional Regions of Greece is Larissa....
, he went to consult the naiads. His aunt Arethusa invited him below the water's surface, where he was washed with water from a perpetual spring and given advice. A less well-connected mortal might have drowned, being sent as a messenger in this way to gain the advice and favor of the naiads for his people.

Types of Naiads

  • Crinaeae
    Crinaeae

    In Greek mythology, the Crinaeae were a type of nymph associated with fountains.The Crinaeae included:# Aganippe# Appias ...
     (fountains)
  • Limnades
    Limnades

    In Greek mythology, the Limnades were a type of Naiad. They live in freshwater lakes. Their parents were river or lake gods.The Limnades include: Astakides, Limnaee....
     or Limnatides (lakes)
  • Pegaeae
    Pegaeae

    In Greek mythology, the Pegaeae were a type of naiad that lived in spring s. One group of them dwelled in the spring of Pegae, and were responsible for the kidnapping of Hylas....
     (springs)
  • Potameides (rivers)
  • Eleionomae
    Eleionomae

    The Eleionomae were marsh naiads in ancient Greek mythology. Aside from living in marshy environments, the Eleionomae often misled travelers with their illusions....
     (marshes)


Individual Naiads

  • Abarbarea
    Abarbarea

    In classical Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Abarbarea is a naiads. She is the wife of Bucolion and had two sons by him, Aesepus and Pedasus....
  • Aegle
  • Annaed
  • Arethusa
    Arethusa (mythology)

    Arethusa means "the waterer". She was a nymph and daughter of Nereus , and later became a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily, Sicily....
  • Bateia
    Bateia

    In Greek mythology, Bateia can refer to several characters:*The daughter of King Teucer and ancesstress of the Troy.*A naiads. Either she or Gorgophone was the mother of Hippocoon, Icarius and Tyndareus with the Spartan King Oebalus....
  • Callirrhoe
    Callirrhoe (naiad)

    In Greek mythology, Callirrhoe was a naiads. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys . She had three husbands, Chrysaor, Neilus and Poseidon....
  • Castalia
    Castalia

    Castalia, in Greek mythology, was a nymph whom Apollo transformed into a fountain at Delphi, at the base of Mount Parnassos, or at Mount Helicon....
  • Charybdis
    Charybdis

    In Greek mythology, Kharybdis or Charybdis was a sea monster, once a beautiful naiad and the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia . She takes form as a huge bladder of a creature whose face was all mouth and whose arms and legs were flippers and swallows huge amounts of water three times a day before belching them back out again, creating whi...
  • Cleochareia
    Cleochareia

    In Greek mythology, Cleochareia was a Naiads, a river nymph. She was married to King Lelex of Laconia and her father was the river god Eurotas....
  • Corycian nymphs
    • Corycia
      Corycia

      In Greek mythology, Corycia was a naiad who lived on Mount Parnassus in Phocis. Her father was the local river-god Kephisos or Pleistos of northern Boeotia....
    • Kleodora
      Kleodora

      In Greek mythology, Kleodora was one of the prophetic Thriai, nymphs who divined the future by throwing stones or pebbles. She and her sisters lived on Mount Parnassus in Phocis and was loved by Poseidon....
       or Cleodora
    • Melaina
      Melaina

      In Greek mythology, Melaina was a Corycian nymph, or member of the prophetic Thriae, of the springs of Delphi in Phocis, who was loved by Apollo bearing him Delphos....
  • Creusa
    Creusa

    In Greek mythology, four people had the name Creusa ; the name means simply "princess"....
  • Drosera
    Drosera (naiad)

    In Greek mythology, Drosera was a naiads. She was one of the three ancestors of the Tyre , along with Callirrhoe and Abarbarea....
  • Echenais
  • Harpina
    Harpina

    In Greek mythology, Harpina was a Naiad nymph and daughter of Phliasian Asopus and of Metope . Pausanias and Diodorus Siculus mention Harpina and state that, according to the tradition of the Eliss and Phliuss, Ares mated with her in the city of Pisa and she bore him Oenomaus, the king of Pisa....
  • Lara
  • Lethe
    Lethe

    In Classical Greek, Lethe literally means "forgetfulness" or "concealment". It is related to the Greek word for "truth": a-lethe-ia , meaning "un-forgetfulness" or "un-concealment"....
  • Lilaea
    Lilaea

    In Greek mythology, Lilaea was a Naiads who lived in the Cephissus River. The town of Lilaea in Phocis and the asteroid 213 Lilaea are named after her....
  • Melite
    Melite

    Melite was one of the naiads, daughter of the river god Aegaeus, and one of the many loves of Zeus and his son Hercules. Given the choice, she chose Hercules over Zeus who went off in search of other pursuits....
  • Minthe
    Minthe

    In Greek mythology, Minthe was a naiad associated with the river Cocytus. She was dazzled by Hades' golden chariot and was about to be seduced by him had not Queen Persephone intervened and metamorphosed Minthe into the pungently sweet-smelling mentha, which some call hedyosmus....
  • Nomia
    Nomia (mythology)

    In Greek mythology, Nomia was a naiads. The Nomian Mountains were named after her. She may have been the nymph who loved Daphnis. Naiads are the beautiful nymphs of fresh water ....
  • Orseis
    Orseis

    In Greek mythology, Orseis, was the water-nymph of a spring in Thessalia, Greece, and the mythical ancestor of the Greeks. It is uncertain whether she was believed to be the daughter of Oceanus or the river-god of Thessalia, Peneios....
  • Periboea
    Periboea

    In Greek mythology, nine people shared the name Periboea .#Periboea was the daughter of either King Cychreus of Salamis Island or of Alcathous....
  • Pitane
  • Praxithea
    Praxithea

    In Greek mythology, Praxithea or Pasithea was a name attributed to five women....
  • Salmacis
    Salmacis

    In Greek mythology, Salmacis was an atypical naiad who rejected the ways of the virginal Culture of Greece goddess Artemis in favor of vanity and idleness....
  • Styx
    Styx

    Styx may refer to:* Styx , the river that forms the boundary between the Greek underworld and the world of the living, as well as a goddess and a nymph that represent the river....


In popular culture

  • In Fablehaven
    Fablehaven

    Fablehaven is a New York Times best-selling children's literature fantasy series written by Brandon Mull. The book series, which to date includes Fablehaven, Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star, and Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague are published by Shadow Mountain in hardcover and Simon and Schuster in paperback....
    , the character Lena is a Naiad who chose to become Mortal. She is returned to life as a Naiad by fairies at the end of the book, but chooses to become a mortal again in Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague
    Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague

    Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague is the third book in the Fablehaven fantasy series written by Brandon Mull. The book was realesd on April 21, 2008 Its upcoming sequel is ...
    . Later in Shadow Plague, she dies.
  • The Ron Horsley
    Ron Horsley

    Ron Horsley is an author and artist responsible for numerous short stories, essays, reviews, and book cover designs.Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio, his first published work was as editor of and contributor to The Midnighters Club: Tales from the Harker House Collection, 2001....
     short story "Joy, Unbottled," is about a young boy who discovers a senile and corrupted naiad residing in an old discarded bathtub on his uncle's rural property.
  • Despite her name, the Marvel Comics character Venus is a Naiad.
  • Naiads are among the creatures appearing in Aslan
    Aslan

    Aslan, the "Great Lion", is the central character in The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels for children written by C. S....
    's company in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
    The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

    The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fantasy fiction novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Written in 1950 in literature and set in approximately 1940, it is the first-published book of The Chronicles of Narnia and is the best known book of the series....
     and are also in The Magician's Nephew
    The Magician's Nephew

    The Magician's Nephew is a fantasy fiction novel for children written by C. S. Lewis. It was the sixth book published in his The Chronicles of Narnia series, but is the first in the chronology of the Narnia novels' fictional universe....
     and Prince Caspian
    Prince Caspian

    Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia is a novel for children by C. S. Lewis, written in late 1949 and first published in 1951 in literature....
    .
  • In the video game God of War, sea nymphs representing Naiads appear in the Challenge of Poseidon. However, it is spelt "Nyad" in the game and they are daughters of Poseidon. If the player finds them and kisses them, he will earn special gifts.
  • The poet Rupert Brooke
    Rupert Brooke

    Rupert Chawner Brooke was an England poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the World War I ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand....
     refers to them in his classic poem about Grantchester
    Grantchester

    Grantchester is a village on the River Cam or Granta in Cambridgeshire, in England in the United Kingdom. It is listed in the Domesday Book as Grantesete and Grauntsethe....
    : "And clever modern men have seen A Faun a-peeping through the green, And felt the Classics were not dead, To glimpse a Naiad's reedy head..."
  • The sonnet To Science by Edgar Allan Poe
    Edgar Allan Poe

    Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, Short story writer, Editing and Literary criticism, and is considered part of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of Mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the Detective fiction genre....
     mentions naiads in the line "Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood...?"


See also

  • Camenae
    Camenae

    In Roman mythology, the Camenae were originally goddesses of springs, wells and fountains, or water nymphs of Venus. They were wise, and sometimes gave prophecies of the future....
  • Melusine
    Melusine

    Melusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit#Metaphysical and metaphorical uses of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers....
  • Nix
    Nix

    The Neck or the Nix/Nixe refer to shapeshifting water spirits who usually appear in human form. The spirit has appeared in the myths and legends of all Germanic peoples in Europe....
  • Ondine
    Ondine (mythology)

    Ondines or undines are elementals, enumerated as the water elementals in works of alchemy by Paracelsus. They also appear in European folklore as fairy-like creatures; the name may be used interchangeably with those of other water spirits....
  • Siren
    Siren

    In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous bird-women, portrayed as seductresses, who lived on an island called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the Sirenusian islands near Paestum...


External links