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Limnad

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(Redirected from Limnades) Lake nymphs in Greek myth
Greek deities
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Nymphs

In Greek mythology, the Limnads (/ˈlɪmnædz, -nədz/; Ancient Greek: Λιμνάδες) or Limnatides (Ancient Greek: Λιμνατιδες) or Leimenids (/ˈlaɪmɪnɪdz/; Ancient Greek: Λειμενίδες) were a type of naiad.

Mythology

The Limnads are Naiads that lived in freshwater lakes. Their parents were the Potamoi (river gods) or the lake gods.

Types and names

The number of Limnads includes but is not limited to:

  • The Astakides (αἱ Ἀστακίδες), nymphs of the Lake Astakos in Bithynia
  • Bolbe (Βόλβη), nymph of a Thessalian lake of the same name, also classed as an Oceanid due to her parentage (daughter of Oceanus and Tethys)
  • Pallas (Παλλάς, genitive Παλλάδος)
  • Tritonis (Τριτονίς), nymph of the homonymous salt-water lake in Libya, mother of Nasamon and Caphaurus (or Cephalion) by Amphithemis, and, according to an archaic version of the myth, also of Athena by Poseidon.

Despite her name Limnaee (Λιμναία), daughter of the Indian river god Ganges and one of the reputed mothers of Athis, isn't a limnad, being the naïad of a river and not of a lake.

Notes

  1. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 15.370 ff
  2. Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.47 ff
  3. Apollodorus, 3.144
  4. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4.1493 ff.; Hyginus, Fabulae 14
  5. Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 1.14.6
  6. Ovid, 'Metamorphoses 5.47 ff

References

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