Nereids
Encyclopedia
In Greek mythology
, the Nereids (icon ; ) are sea nymph
s, the fifty daughters of Nereus
and Doris
, sisters to Nerites
. They often accompany Poseidon
and can be friendly and helpful to sailors fighting perilous storms. They are particularly associated with the Aegean Sea
, where they dwelt with their father in the depths within a silvery cave. The most notable of them are Thetis
, wife of Peleus
and mother of Achilles
; Amphitrite
, wife of Poseidon
; and Galatea
, love of the Cyclops Polyphemus
.
In Iliad
XVIII, when Thetis cries out in sympathy for the grief of Achilles
for the slain Patroclus
,
The Nereids are the namesake of one of the moons
of the planet Neptune
.
The nymph Opis is mentioned in Virgil's Aeneid. She is called on by the goddess Diana to avenge the death of the Amazon-like female warrior Camilla. Diana gives Opis magical weapons with which to take revenge on Camilla's killer, the Etruscan Arruns. Opis sees and laments Camilla's death and shoots Arruns in revenge as directed by Diana. This information is from 'Virgil, his life and times' by Peter Levi, Duckworth, 1998.
, Hesiod
, Homer
, and Hyginus
. Because of this the total number of names goes beyond fifty.
In modern Greek folklore
, the term "nereid" has come to be used of all nymph
s, or fairies, not merely nymphs of the sea.
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, the Nereids (icon ; ) are sea nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
s, the fifty daughters of Nereus
Nereus
In Greek mythology, Nereus was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia , a Titan who with Doris fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea. In the Iliad the Old Man of the Sea is the father of Nereids, though Nereus is not directly named...
and Doris
Doris (mythology)
Doris , an Oceanid, was a sea nymph in Greek mythology, whose name represented the bounty of the sea. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and the wife of Nereus. She was also aunt to Atlas, the titan who was made to carry the sky upon his shoulders, whose mother Clymene was a sister of Doris...
, sisters to Nerites
Nerites (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nerites was a minor sea deity, son of Nereus and Doris and brother of the fifty Nereides. He is described as a young boy of stunning beauty....
. They often accompany Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
and can be friendly and helpful to sailors fighting perilous storms. They are particularly associated with the Aegean Sea
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, where they dwelt with their father in the depths within a silvery cave. The most notable of them are Thetis
Thetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...
, wife of Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...
and mother of Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
; Amphitrite
Amphitrite
In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite was a sea-goddess and wife of Poseidon. Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became merely the consort of Poseidon, and was further diminished by poets to a symbolic representation of the sea...
, wife of Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
; and Galatea
Galatea (mythology)
-Name "Galatea":Though the name "Galatea" has become so firmly associated with Pygmalion's statue as to seem antique, its use in connection with Pygmalion originated with a post-classical writer. No extant ancient text mentions the statue's name...
, love of the Cyclops Polyphemus
Polyphemus
Polyphemus is the gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes. His name means "much spoken of" or "famous". Polyphemus plays a pivotal role in Homer's Odyssey.-In Homer's Odyssey:...
.
In Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
XVIII, when Thetis cries out in sympathy for the grief of Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
for the slain Patroclus
Patroclus
In Greek mythology, as recorded in the Iliad by Homer, Patroclus, or Patroklos , was the son of Menoetius, grandson of Actor, King of Opus, and was Achilles' beloved comrade and brother-in-arms....
,
-
- (E.V. Rieu, translator)
The Nereids are the namesake of one of the moons
Nereid (moon)
Nereid , also known as Neptune II, is the third-largest moon of Neptune. It has a highly eccentric orbit. Nereid was discovered by Gerard Kuiper in 1949 and was the second moon of Neptune to be discovered.- Discovery and naming :...
of the planet Neptune
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...
.
The nymph Opis is mentioned in Virgil's Aeneid. She is called on by the goddess Diana to avenge the death of the Amazon-like female warrior Camilla. Diana gives Opis magical weapons with which to take revenge on Camilla's killer, the Etruscan Arruns. Opis sees and laments Camilla's death and shoots Arruns in revenge as directed by Diana. This information is from 'Virgil, his life and times' by Peter Levi, Duckworth, 1998.
Names of the Nereids
This list is correlated from four sources: ApollodorusApollodorus
Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...
, Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
, Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, and Hyginus
Gaius Julius Hyginus
Gaius Julius Hyginus was a Latin author, a pupil of the famous Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was by Augustus elected superintendent of the Palatine library according to Suetonius' De Grammaticis, 20...
. Because of this the total number of names goes beyond fifty.
- Actaea
- Agave
- Amathia
- Amphinome
- Amphithoe
- Amphitrite
- Apseudes
- ArethusaArethusa (mythology)For other uses, see ArethusaArethusa means "the waterer". In Greek mythology, she was a nymph and daughter of Nereus , and later became a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily....
- AsiaAsia (mythology)Asia or Clymene in Greek mythology was a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, the wife of the Titan Iapetus, and mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius. Hesiod gives the name as Clymene in his Theogony but Apollodorus gives instead the name Asia as does Lycophron...
- Autonoe
- Beroe
- Callianassa
- Callianira
- CalypsoCalypso (mythology)Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she detained Odysseus for a number of years. She is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas....
- Ceto
- Clio
- Clymene
- Cranto
- Creneis
- Cydippe
- Cymo
- Cymatolege
- Cymodoce
- Cymothoe
- Deiopea
- Dero
- Dexamene
- Dione
- DorisDoris (mythology)Doris , an Oceanid, was a sea nymph in Greek mythology, whose name represented the bounty of the sea. She was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and the wife of Nereus. She was also aunt to Atlas, the titan who was made to carry the sky upon his shoulders, whose mother Clymene was a sister of Doris...
- Doto
- Drymo
- Dynamene
- Eione
- Ephyra
- Erato
- Eucrante
- Eudore
- Eulimene
- Eumolpe
- Eunice
- Eupompe
- Eurydice
- Evagore
- Evarne
- Galene
- GalateaGalatea (mythology)-Name "Galatea":Though the name "Galatea" has become so firmly associated with Pygmalion's statue as to seem antique, its use in connection with Pygmalion originated with a post-classical writer. No extant ancient text mentions the statue's name...
- Glauce
- Glauconome
- Halie
- Halimede
- Hipponoe
- Hippothoe
- Iaera
- Ianassa
- Ianeira
- Ione
- Iphianassa
- Laomedeia
- Leiagore
- Leucothoe
- Ligea
- Limnoria
- Lycorias
- Lysianassa
- Maera
- Melite
- Menippe
- Nausithoe
- Neaera
- Nemertes
- Neomeris
- Nesaea
- Neso
- Opis
- Orithyia
- Panopea (Panope)
- Pasithea
- Pherusa
- Phyllodoce
- Plexaure
- Ploto
- Polynome
- Pontomedusa
- Pontoporeia
- Poulunoe
- Pronoe
- Proto
- Protomedeia
- Psamathe
- Sao
- Speio
- Thaleia
- Themisto
- Thetis
- Thoe
- Xantho
In modern Greek folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, the term "nereid" has come to be used of all nymph
Nymph
A nymph in Greek mythology is a female minor nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from gods, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing;...
s, or fairies, not merely nymphs of the sea.