In Greek mythology, a nymph who inhabits springs, rivers, and lakes.
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Greek deities series |
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| Primordial deities | |
| Titans and Olympians | |
| Chthonic deities | |
| Personified concepts | |
| Other deities | |
| Aquatic deities | |
| Poseidon Oceanus Ceto Nereus Glaucus Thetis Amphitrite Tethys | Triton Proteus Phorcys Pontus Oceanids Nereids Naiads |
| Nymphs | |
| Dryads Naiads Meliae Oreads Napaeae Nereids | Hamadryads Oceanids Limnades Crinaeae Hesperides Pegaeae |
In Greek mythology, the Naiads (from the Greek νάειν, "to flow," and νἃμα, "running water") were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks, as river gods embodied rivers, and some very ancient spirits inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna in the Argolid. Naiads were associated with fresh water, as the Oceanids were with saltwater and the Nereids specifically with the Mediterranean;
Otherwise, the essence of a naiad was bound to her spring.
When a mythic king is credited with marrying a naiad and founding a city, Robert Graves 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, Hypseus, a king of the Lapiths wed 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 the naiads.
Naiads could be dangerous: Hylas of the Argo's crew was lost when he was taken by naiads fascinated by his beauty (illustration, above right).
The Naiads were either daughters of Zeus or various Oceanids, but a genealogy for such ancient, ageless creatures is easily overstated.
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