Naiads

Naiad

Naiad

Female spirit or nymph in Greek mythology

For other uses, see Naiad (disambiguation).

In Greek mythology, the naiads (/ˈnaɪædz, ˈneɪædz, -ədz/; Greek: ναϊάδες, translit. naïádes) are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water.

Quick Facts Grouping, Sub grouping ...

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 in the Argolis.

Etymology

The Greek word is ναϊάς (naïás [naːiás]), plural ναϊάδες (naïádes [naːiádes]). It derives from νάειν (náein), "to flow", or νᾶμα (nâma), "running water".

Mythology

Undine, by John William Waterhouse

Naiads 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 there. Oracles might be situated by ancient springs.

Naiads could be dangerous: Hylas of the Argo’s crew was lost when he was taken by naiads fascinated by his beauty. The naiads were also known to exhibit jealous tendencies. Theocritus's story of naiad jealousy was that of a shepherd, Daphnis, who was the lover of Nomia or Echenais; Daphnis had on several occasions been unfaithful to Nomia and as revenge she permanently blinded him. The nymph Salmacis raped Hermaphroditus and fused with him when he tried to escape.

The water nymph associated with particular springs was known all through Europe in places with no direct connection with Greece, surviving in the Celtic wells of northwest Europe that have been rededicated to Saints, and in the medieval Melusine.

Walter Burkert points out, "When in the Iliad [xx.4–9] Zeus calls the gods into assembly on Mount Olympus, it is not only the well-known Olympians who come along, but also all the nymphs and all the rivers; Okeanos alone remains at his station",[1] Greek hearers recognized this impossibility as the poet's hyperbole, 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."[1]

Interpretation

Robert Graves offered a sociopolitical reading of the common myth-type in which a mythic king is credited with marrying a naiad and founding a city: it was the newly arrived Hellenes justifying their presence. The loves and rapes of Zeus, according to Graves' readings, record the supplanting of ancient local cults by Olympian ones (Graves 1955, passim).

So, in the back-story of the myth of Aristaeus, Hypseus, a king of the Lapiths, married Chlidanope, a naiad, who bore him Cyrene. Aristaeus had more than ordinary mortal experience with the naiads: when his bees died in Thessaly, he went to consult them. His aunt Arethusa invited him below the water's surface, where he was washed with water from a perpetual spring and given advice.

Types and individual names

More information Name, Location ...
More information Name, Location ...

Place names

See also

Notes

  1. [1]
    Burkert, III, 3.3, p. 174.
  2. [2]
    Pausanias, 9.29.5
  3. [3]
    Pausanias, 8.31.4
  4. [4]
    Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 8.334e
  5. [5]
    Apollodorus, 3.12.3.
  6. [6]
    Hyginus, Fabulae 14
  7. [7]
    Homer, Iliad 6.21–23
  8. [8]
    Apollodorus, 3.11.2
  9. [9]
    Apollodorus, 2.6
  10. [10]
    Tzetzes on Lycophron, 511
  11. [11]
    Callimachus, Aitia fr. 66; Valerius Flaccus, 4.374 ff.
  12. [12]
    Antoninus Liberalis, 22
  13. [13]
    Scholia on Homer's Iliad 16. 718 with Pherecydes as the authority
  14. [14]
    Strabo, 8.3.19
  15. [15]
    Pausanias, 5.5.11
  16. [16]
    Theoi Project - Anigrides
  17. [17]
    Pausanias, 9.24.4
  18. [18]
    Theoi Project - Nymphai Kyrtoniai
  19. [19]
    Callimachus, Hymn IV to Delos 252
  20. [20]
    Theoi Project - Deliades
  21. [21]
    Pindar, Olympian Odes 12
  22. [22]
    Diodorus Siculus, 5.5.1
  23. [23]
    Pausanias, 6.22.7
  24. [24]
    Homer, Odyssey 13.96 ff.
  25. [25]
    Strabo, 9.2.25; 10.3.17
  26. [26]
    Pausanias, 9.34.4
  27. [27]
    Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.1225 ff.
  28. [28]
    Hyginus, Fabulae 14
  29. [29]
    Theocritus, Idylls 13.44
  30. [30]
    Diodorus Siculus, 5.5.1
  31. [31]
    Theoi Project - Naiades Ortygiai
  32. [32]
    Theoi Project - Rhyndacides
  33. [33]
    Ovid, Metamorphoses 11.762 ff.
  34. [34]
    Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3. 89, in a list of Sicilian springs, of which only Arethousa and Cyane are known to have been personified
  35. [35]
    Strabo, 6.2.4
  36. [36]
    Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.407 & 487 ff.
  37. [37]
    Virgil, Aeneid 3. 694 ff.
  38. [38]
    Pausanias, 10.8.9 & 10.24.7
  39. [39]
    Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.143-144 & 40.141-143
  40. [40]
    Statius, Thebaid 4.716
  41. [41]
    Quintus Smyrnaeus, 3.300
  42. [42]
    Plato, Phaedrus 229
  43. [43]
    "Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, v. 3, page 238". Archived from the original on 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2018-08-25.
  44. [44]
    Callimachus, Hymn 4 to Delos 75 ff.
  45. [45]
    Suida, s.v. Ergiske
  46. [46]
    Naiad Lake. SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Naiads.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Naiads, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.