Mythical fountains

shadows08

New Member
Hey does anyone know about the more prominent legendary fountains in greek mythology? Also are there any on Mount Olympus?
 
hmmmm, never heard of mythical fountains in Greek myth, just river or lakes.
I've heard of a mythical river(?) wherein Hera bathe there to restore her virginity.
 

fibi ducks

Active Member
there are springs aren't there? wasn't there something about one which spung up where pegasus made an imprint with his hoof? but i never came accross any fountains.
 

magickz

Active Member
No but speaking of fountains, I have a friend about to get married today in NYC, then her & her bride are going up to Niagara Falls for the honeymoon. Both work very hard and are excited for a two week honeymoon. I was not that lucky myself. :)
 

Nadai

Active Member
I can't remember hearing any fountain stories, but I know a lot of myths about springs and rivers.
There was a spring that belonged to the naiad Salmakis. Salmakis saw Hermaphroditos-the son of Hermes and Aphrodite- bathing in her spring after a hunt and fell in love with him. She wrapped aroung him and tried to rape him; he fought her and tried to escape, but couldn't get out of her water. As they fought one another, she prayed to the gods that she should be able to possess him. I'm not sure which god answered, but they granted her wish and merged their bodies to one another so that Hermaphroditos became one; he became a hermaphrodite. He was the god of effiminate men- one of the love-gods known as Erotes. From then on, whenever a man bathed in her spring he immediately felt his strength fading away, his body changing, and became less of a man.
 

Nadai

Active Member
I think maybe, if anyone, the Muses could be related to fountains. I just found this.
Muse: Domain: Emblem
Calliope: Epic Poetry: Writing Tablet
Clie: History: Scrolls
Erato: Love poetry: Cithara
Euterpe: Song:Aulos
Melpomene: Tragedy: Tragic Mask
Polvhvmnia: Hyms: Veil
Thalia: Comedy: Comic Mask
Terpsichore: Dance: Lyre
Urania: Astronomy: Globe & Compass
I think that I read that there is supposed to be a tenth muse, maybe she has something to do with fountains.
 

Nadai

Active Member
I was reading up on Pegasus today when I came across a myth that talks about a fountain, though in another version of the same myth it was a spring
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After Pegasus sprang from Medusa's severed head the Muses took him to Olympus to raise him. He was so excited about being with the Muses that he began to prance and stomp his feet against the side of the mountain. He beat the ground so furiously that, from beneath his hooves, erupted springs and the springs were changed to fountains of inspiration. The fountains became sacred to the Muses, especially to Urania, who favored Pegasus more than any other because she was able to see the bright and heroic future before him.
 

Nadai

Active Member
I was searching for something and came across this myth involving a fountain, though I don't know much about it.
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In Greek mythology, Arethusa was a daughter of Nereus and Doris. She was a nymph changed by Artemis into a fountain to enable her to escape the pursuit of Alpheus.
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This is from Ovid of course.
Arethusa (Ἀρέθουσα) "the waterer". She was a nymph and later was transformed into a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily.
She came across a stream and began bathing, not knowing it was the river god Alpheus. He fell in love with her when he saw her and tried to rape her, but she ran because she was an attendant of Artemis she had to remain pure. She prayed to Artemis for help. Artemis made a cloud form around Arethusa to hide her, but Alpheus found her. She was tired and sweating from running so much, but Alpheus wasn't tired and continued to chase her so she continued to run. She was then transformed into a stream. Artemis split the ground so that Arethusa could get away. She flowed under the earth to the island of Ortygia, but Alpheus went through the sea to reach her and there he mingled with her waters (raped her).​
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During Demeter's search for Persephone, Arethusa entreated Demeter to discontinue her punishment of Sicily for her daughter's disappearance. She told the goddess that while traveling in her stream below the earth, she saw her daughter on the throne as the queen of Hades.​
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Arethusa occasionally appeared on coins as a young girl with a net in her hair and dolphins around her head. These coins were common around Ortygia, the location in which she ends up after fleeing from Alpheus.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
The spring or fountain on Mt Helikon, which resulted from the blow of Pegasos' hoof, and is called Hippokrene, "Horse-Fountain," seems to be the most famous one in Greek mythology. I'm unaware of any on Mt Olympos.

The fountain or well called Peirene, located on the Akrokorinthos (the citadel of the city of Korinthos [Corinth]), was believed to have arisen from the tears which Peirene, the Naiad (water-nymph) of the region, shed in grief at the death of Kenkhrias (her son by Poseidon), who was somehow unintentionally killed by his cousin Artemis.

On Mt Ithome in Messenia there was a fountain called Klepsydra, whose name supposedly has something to do with theft, since it is said that Rhea, from fear of her husband Kronos, organised for the Kouretes (Curetes) to "steal" her newborn son Zeus away. The Kouretes entrusted Zeus to the care of the Messenian Oceanides Ithome and Neda, who bathed him in the spring or fountain which was, from this incident, named Klepsydra.

There's also a story about the Sicilian fountain or spring of Kyane (Cyane), named for a water-nymph who was married to the local river Anapos and who was one of the playmates of the young goddess Korē. The most well-renowned nymph in all of Sicily at the time, Kyane dwelt in her pool or fountain of water in the meadows of Enna (or Henna) on Syracuse Island off the coast of Sicily's mainland, where Korē liked to chill out the most, since she owned all this as her portion from the divisions of the world amongst the deities of Mt Olympos. When Haides (Hades) was abducting Korē to take her down to the Underworld, Kyane heard her cries and rose waist-high out of her pool of water, tried to bar Haides from his course and begged him not to ravish the goddess away but to woo her instead of taking her against her will. But Haides angrily thrust his sceptre into the ground with such force that the violence of the blow caused the bed of Kyane's pool to break open and thus injure the pool, which was the nymph herself. Haides then opened there and then a road to his kingdom, the Underworld, and disappeared down it with his niece Korē. The opening then closed up again. In grief at the loss of her companion and in anguish at the violation of her pool, Kyane dissolved into yet more water after pining away on the same spot. Korēs girdle had been left floating on the surface of the pool and became the only physical evidence, apart from the violence done to the nymphs pool, that that was the exact location of Korēs abduction. Centuries later, while carrying out his tenth task under the servitude of Eurystheus, which task was to steal the oxen of Geryones, Herakles (Hercules) was making a circuit of Sicily when, as he was passing through Syracuse Island, he happened by this pool and heard the story of Korēs abduction there in Enna, whence he offered sacrifices on a magnificent scale to his aunt, Korēs mother Demeter, and to Persephone, the Underworld goddess that Kore had become, who was his half-sister, cousin and now also aunt. To Persephone he offered the largest bull of the entire herd of Geryones oxen by casting it into the pool of Kyane. Then, by commanding the natives to there conduct an annual gathering and the same sacrifice in splendid fashion, he instituted this festival among the people of Syracuse on the island at the spot of the event, at which a bull was sunk into the well as a sacrifice. Private individuals, however, when the ceremony was not on behalf of the entire community, offered lesser victims. The well, or fountain, became sacred to Persephone.
 

Nadai

Active Member
I was reading Ovid's "Metamorphosis" to my kids and ran across the myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis. In the myth, Salmacis falls in love with the son of Venus and tries to rape him while he's bathing in her fountain, the fountain of Salmacis. He fights her but both are equally matched so, before he can get away, she prays that they can be united in body and spirit. The gods hear her prayer and turn them into one creature so they are no longer a man and woman, but a mix of the two. When Hermaphroditus sees what's been done to his body he prays to his mother and father that they curse the fountain of Salmacis so that whatever man should enter the fountain have his body transformed into a figure resembling the shape of neither man nor woman, but both.
 
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