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Etymology

The Greek word nýmphē has the primary meaning of "young woman; bride, young wife" but is not usually associated with deities in particular. Yet the etymology of the noun nýmphē remains uncertain. The Doric and Aeolic (Homeric) form is nýmphā (νύμφα).⁸

Modern usage more often applies to young women, contrasting with parthenos (παρθένος) "a virgin (of any age)", and generically as kore (κόρη < κόρϝα) "maiden, girl". The term is sometimes used by women to address each other and remains the regular Modern Greek term for "bride".

Ancient Greek mythology

Nymphs were sometimes beloved by many and dwelt in specific areas related to the natural environment: e.g. mountainous regions; forests; springs. Other nymphs were part of the retinue of a god (such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan) or of a goddess (generally the huntress Artemis).⁹

The Greek nymphs were also spirits invariably bound to places, not unlike the Latin genius loci, and sometimes this produced complicated myths like the cult of Arethusa to Sicily. In some of the works of the Greek-educated Latin poets, the nymphs gradually absorbed into their ranks the indigenous Italian divinities of springs and streams (Juturna, Egeria, Carmentis, Fontus) while the Lymphae (originally Lumpae), Italian water goddesses, owing to the accidental similarity of their names, could be identified with the Greek Nymphae. The classical mythologies of the Roman poets were unlikely to have affected the rites and cults of individual nymphs venerated by country people in the springs and clefts of Latium. Among the Roman literate class, their sphere of influence was restricted and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element.

Greek folk religion

The ancient Greek belief in nymphs survived in many parts of the country into the early years of the twentieth century when they were usually known as "nereids".¹⁰ Nymphs often tended to frequent areas distant from humans but could be encountered by lone travelers outside the village, where their music might be heard, and the traveler could spy on their dancing or bathing in a stream or pool, either during the noon heat or in the middle of the night.¹¹ They might appear in a whirlwind. Such encounters could be dangerous, bringing dumbness, besotted infatuation, madness or stroke to the unfortunate man. When parents believed their child to be nereid-struck, they would pray to the Saint Artemidos (Artemis), an example of "practical polytheism in the worship of the saints."¹²¹³

Nymphs and fairies

Nymphs are often depicted in classic works across art, literature, mythology, and fiction. They are often associated with the medieval romances or Renaissance literature of the elusive fairies or elves.¹⁴¹⁵

Sleeping nymph

A motif that entered European art during the Renaissance was the idea of a statue of a nymph sleeping in a grotto or spring.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸ This motif supposedly came from an Italian report of a Roman sculpture of a nymph at a fountain above the River Danube.¹⁹ The report, and an accompanying poem supposedly on the fountain describing the sleeping nymph, are now generally concluded to be a fifteenth-century forgery, but the motif proved influential among artists and landscape gardeners for several centuries after, with copies seen at neoclassical gardens such as the grotto at Stourhead.²⁰²¹²²

List

All the names for various classes of nymphs have plural feminine adjectives, most agreeing with the substantive numbers and groups of nymphai. There is no single adopted classification that could be seen as canonical and exhaustive.²³ Some classes of nymphs tend to overlap, which complicates the task of precise classification. e.g. dryads and hamadryads as nymphs of trees generally, meliai as nymphs of ash trees.²⁴ According to classicist Robin Hard, these terms "were hardly proper names at all, but feminine adjectives that could be assigned to the noun nymphē at will", adding that "[n]o orthodox or exhaustive classification of such beings was ever attempted, and ancient authors were often careless or arbitrary in the application of such titles".²⁵

By dwelling or affinity

The following is not the authentic Greek classification, but is intended as a guide:

By location

The following is a list of individual nymphs or groups thereof associated with this or that particular location. Nymphs in such groups could belong to any of the classes mentioned above (Naiades, Oreades, and so on).

Others

The following is a selection of names of the nymphs whose class was not specified in the source texts. For lists of Naiads, Oceanids, Dryades etc., see respective articles.

In non-Greek tales influenced by Greek mythology

• Sabrina (the river Severn)
• Tágides (Tagus River)

Gallery

See also

• Animism
• Apsaras
• Dryad
• Fairy
• Houri
• Kami
• Mimi
• Naiad
• Nereid
• Nunnehi
• Nymphaeum
• Pitsa panels
• Plant soul
• Rå
• Xian
• Vila
• Yakshini
• Zana
• List of Greek deities

Notes

• Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion (1st ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-36281-9.
• Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 9, Mini – Obe, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, Brill, 2006. ISBN 9004122729.
• Campbell, David A., Greek Lyric, Volume II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman, Loeb Classical Library No. 143, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-674-99158-3. Online version at Harvard University Press. Internet Archive.
• Grimal, Pierre (1996). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1.
• Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", London and New York, Routledge, 2004. ISBN 020344633X. doi:10.4324/9780203446331.
• Larson, Jennifer (2001). Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514465-9.
• Lawson, John Cuthbert (1910). Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 131.
• Montanari, Franco, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, edited by Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden, Brill, 2015. ISBN 978-90-04-19318-5.
• Page, Denys Lionel, Sir, Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford University Press, 1962. ISBN 978-0-198-14333-8.
• Philostratus the Elder, Imagines, in Philostratus the Elder, Imagines. Philostratus the Younger, Imagines. Callistratus, Descriptions, translated by Arthur Fairbanks, Loeb Classical Library No. 256, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1931. ISBN 978-06-749-9282-5. Harvard University Press.
• Ricciardelli, Gabriella, Inni Orfici, Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, 2000. ISBN 978-8-804-47661-0.
• Tomkinson, John L. (2004). Haunted Greece: Nymphs, Vampires and Other Exotika (1st ed.). Athens: Anagnosis. ISBN 978-960-88087-0-6.
• Vian, Francis, Les Argonautiques orphiques, Collection Budé, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2003. ISBN 978-2-251-00389-4.

External links

• The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Nymphs)
• The dictionary definition of nymph at Wiktionary
• Media related to Nymphs at Wikimedia Commons

References

1. Larson 2001, p. 5. - Larson, Jennifer (2001). Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514465-9. ↩

2. Larson 2001, p. 11, 71. - Larson, Jennifer (2001). Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514465-9. ↩

3. Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Nymphs. /wiki/Brill%27s_New_Pauly ↩

4. Grimal 1996, pp. 313–314. - Grimal, Pierre (1996). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. ↩

5. Grimal 1996, pp. 313–314. - Grimal, Pierre (1996). The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. ↩

6. Larson 2001, p. 4. - Larson, Jennifer (2001). Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514465-9. ↩

7. Parad, Carlos; Förlag, Maicar (1997). "Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology: Nymphs". Astrom Editions. Retrieved 25 May 2019. http://www.maicar.com/GML/NYMPHS.html ↩

8. "Online Etymology Dictionary". etymonline.com. https://www.etymonline.com/word/nymph ↩

9. Larson, Jennifer (1997). "Handmaidens of Artemis?". The Classical Journal. 92 (3): 249–257. JSTOR 3298110. /wiki/JSTOR_(identifier) ↩

10. Lawson, John Cuthbert (1910). Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 131. https://archive.org/details/moderngreekfolkl00laws ↩

11. Lee, D. Demetracopoulou (1936). "Folklore of the Greeks in America". Folklore. 47 (3): 294–310. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1936.9718647. JSTOR 1256865. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1256865 ↩

12. "Heathen Artemis yielded her functions to her own genitive case transformed into Saint Artemidos", as Terrot Reaveley Glover phrased it in discussing the "practical polytheism in the worship of the saints", in Progress in Religion to the Christian Era 1922:107. /wiki/Terrot_Reaveley_Glover ↩

13. Tomkinson, John L. (2004). Haunted Greece: Nymphs, Vampires and Other Exotika (1st ed.). Athens: Anagnosis. chapter 3. ISBN 978-960-88087-0-6. 978-960-88087-0-6 ↩

14. Kready, Laura (1916). A Study of Fairy Tales. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/sft/sft07.htm ↩

15. Briggs, Katharine Mary (1976). "Euphemistic names for fairies". An Encyclopedia of Fairies. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-394-73467-X. 0-394-73467-X ↩

16. "The Nymph of the Spring". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 23 September 2016. http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.43716.html ↩

17. Stephen John Campbell (2004). The Cabinet of Eros: Renaissance Mythological Painting and the Studiolo of Isabella D'Este. Yale University Press. pp. 95–6. ISBN 978-0-300-11753-0. 978-0-300-11753-0 ↩

18. Maryan Wynn Ainsworth; Joshua P. Waterman; Dorothy Mahon (2013). German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 95–6. ISBN 978-1-58839-487-3. 978-1-58839-487-3 ↩

19. Jay A. Levenson; National Gallery of Art (U.S.) (1991). Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration. Yale University Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-300-05167-4. 978-0-300-05167-4 ↩

20. Leonard Barkan (1999). Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture. Yale University Press. pp. 237–8. ISBN 978-0-300-08911-0. 978-0-300-08911-0 ↩

21. Elisabeth B. MacDougall (January 1994). Fountains, Statues, and Flowers: Studies in Italian Gardens of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Dumbarton Oaks. pp. 37–56. ISBN 978-0-88402-216-9. 978-0-88402-216-9 ↩

22. Kenneth Gross (1992). The Dream of the Moving Statue. Cornell University Press. pp. 170–175. ISBN 978-0-8014-2702-2. 978-0-8014-2702-2 ↩

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24. Rose, Herbert Jennings (1959). A Handbook of Greek Mythology (1st ed.). New York: E. P. Dutton. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-525-47041-0. 978-0-525-47041-0 ↩

25. Hard, p. 210. ↩

26. Quintus Smyrnaeus, 1.683 ff. /wiki/Quintus_Smyrnaeus ↩

27. Diodorus Siculus, 4.26.2 /wiki/Diodorus_Siculus ↩

28. Stesichorus, Geryoneis Frag S8 /wiki/Stesichorus ↩

29. Hyginus, Fabulae 192 /wiki/Gaius_Julius_Hyginus ↩

30. Apollodorus, 3.10.1 /wiki/Bibliotheca_(Pseudo-Apollodorus) ↩

31. Hesiod, Theogony 938 /wiki/Hesiod ↩

32. Apollodorus, 3.12.1 ↩

33. Hyginus, Fabulae 155 /wiki/Gaius_Julius_Hyginus ↩

34. Pausanias, 2.30.8 /wiki/Pausanias_(geographer) ↩

35. Apollodorus, 3.10.1 ↩

36. Hyginus, Fabulae 84 /wiki/Fabulae ↩

37. Hyginus, Astronomica 2.21 ↩

38. Aristophanes, Clouds 264 /wiki/Aristophanes ↩

39. Orphic Hymn 22 ↩

40. Aristophanes, Clouds 563 ↩

41. Homer, Iliad 20.4 /wiki/Iliad ↩

42. Montanari, s.v. αὐλωνιάς, p. 338; Orphic Hymns 51.7 (Ricciardelli, pp. 134, 135). /wiki/Orphic_Hymns ↩

43. Malkin, Irad (2016). "Nymphs". Oxford Classical Dictionary. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.4487. /wiki/Oxford_Classical_Dictionary ↩

44. Statius, Thebaid 9.385 ↩

45. Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2.11. /wiki/Philostratus_the_Elder ↩

46. Hesiod, Theogony 182–187 /wiki/Hesiod ↩

47. Hesiod, Theogony 240-262 ↩

48. Hesiod, Theogony 365–366 ↩

49. Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.539 ff ↩

50. Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 7.61 /wiki/Maurus_Servius_Honoratus ↩

51. Orphic Hymn 71 ↩

52. Oppian, Halieutica 3.485 ff /wiki/Oppian ↩

53. Strabo, 8.3.14 ↩

54. Scholia minora on Homer's Iliad, 6.21 [= Alcman, fr. 63 Campbell, pp. 438, 439 = fr. 63 PMG (Page, p. 53)]. /wiki/Homer ↩

55. Strabo, 10.3.19 ↩

56. Acusilaus Frag as cited in Strabo, 10.3.21 ↩

57. Strabo, 10.3.21 citing Pherecydes /wiki/Pherecydes_of_Athens ↩

58. Vian, commentary on line 646, p. 120; Orphic Argonautica 646 (Vian, p. 120). /wiki/Orphic_Argonautica ↩

59. Pseudo-Plutarch, De fluviis 24 /wiki/Pseudo-Plutarch ↩

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65. Schol. ad Pers. Sat. i. 76. ↩

66. Apollodorus, 3.12.3 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+3.12.3&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022:book=3:chapter=12&highlight=Calybe ↩

67. "Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 2.1". https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0081.tlg001.perseus-grc1:1.31.1 ↩

68. Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions 10.21–23 /wiki/Pseudo-Clement ↩

69. Apollodorus, 3.6.7 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+3.6.7&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022:book=3:chapter=6&highlight=Chariclo ↩

70. Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions 10.21–23 /wiki/Pseudo-Clement ↩

71. Sophocles, Philoctetes 1327 /wiki/Sophocles ↩

72. Pausanias, 10.37.5 /wiki/Pausanias_(geographer) ↩

73. Hyginus, Fabulae 71 /wiki/Gaius_Julius_Hyginus ↩

74. Suida, s.v. Kretheus /wiki/Suda ↩

75. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Krimisa /wiki/Stephanus_of_Byzantium ↩

76. Virgil, Aeneid 1.71-75 /wiki/Virgil ↩

77. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Dodone https://topostext.org/work/241#D246.6 ↩

78. Hyginus, Astronomica 2.16.2 /wiki/Gaius_Julius_Hyginus ↩

79. Antoninus Liberalis, 22 vs Cerambus /wiki/Antoninus_Liberalis ↩

80. Scholia on Homer's Iliad 16. 718 with Pherecydes as the authority /wiki/Pherecydes_of_Athens ↩

81. Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae 40 /wiki/Plutarch ↩

82. Apollodorus, 3.14.2 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+3.14.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022:book=3:chapter=14&highlight=Euryte ↩

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84. "ARGONAUTICA BOOK 2". http://sacred-texts.com/cla/argo/argo23.htm ↩

85. Diodorus Siculus, 5.57.7 /wiki/Diodorus_Siculus ↩

86. Diodorus Siculus, 5.55.5 https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5D*.html#55.5 ↩

87. Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.155 /wiki/Ovid ↩

88. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Hylleis https://topostext.org/work/241#Y647.2 ↩

89. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Krētē https://topostext.org/work/241#K383.21 ↩

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103. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae 1.61.3 /wiki/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus ↩

104. Scholiast ad Theocritus, 1.3 /wiki/Theocritus ↩

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109. Antoninus Liberalis, 32 /wiki/Antoninus_Liberalis ↩

110. Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History 5 in Photius, Myrobiblion 190 /wiki/Ptolemy_Hephaestion ↩

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114. Macrobius, Saturnalia 5.19.15 /wiki/Macrobius ↩

115. Pausanias, 9.32.3 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+9.32.3&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=9:chapter=3&highlight=Thisbe ↩

116. Pausanias, 10.32.9 https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+10.+32.+9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=10:chapter=39&highlight=Tithorea ↩