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In Greek mythology, the naiads (; ), sometimes also hydriads, are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water.
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 Greece Lerna in the Argolis.
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 believed 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 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 Twelve Olympians who come along, but also all the nymphs and all the rivers; Oceanus alone remains at his station",Burkert, III, 3.3, p. 174. 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."
Interpretation
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.
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