Talk:Nymph

Welcome

Needs editing! Please take a look. Thanks.

useless link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephelae This simply redirects to a book called "The Clouds" and I'm not seeing the relation to the Nymph page at all there. The word "Nephelae" doesn't even appear on that page at all. 24.236.147.126 (talk) 21:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Nymph types

Please review the article and the types of nymphs. There was ieimakid, which was moved to Leimakids, because it was typed with capital "I", a common source of confusion. Now because of wikispamming the web I cannot quickly verify any of them, so I leave this to the experts. Thank you, mikka (t) 22:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Hamadryad

According to this list, the dryad is a subcategory/subspecies of the hamadryad. But the articles on dryads and hamadryads both say it's the other way around, that hamadryads are a type of dryad. Maybe it should be swapped here too. But I'm no expert on nymphs.

Alseid or Alpseid (or neither)?

The running text names "alpseids," but the sidebar lists "alseids." It looks like the spelling with P is a typo, since Google turns up no other occurrences of the word, and the main entry on them is Alseid. However, even that article is a stub, and a quick Web search didn't turn up much more on them, so I don't know if either spelling actually names a type of nymph. This needs a source and a correction.

Xanth

The area regarding popular fiction and stuff really needs a mention of Xanth. I'd put it in, but I'm lazy and stuff.

Foreign words - relevance?

Several Greek words, along with a Latin word and a German one, are defined in the article. All of this is very nice, but the relevance of these words in conjunction with nymph isn't clear. Are these terms alternate names for nymphs? Are they the roots from which the English nymph comes from What words come from "nymph"? --Badger151 11:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"Quoting"

There are too many quotes; it is annoying running into them everywhere. Surely they can be paraphrased and their sources moved to footnotes? Inline citations further uglify the text. Brainmuncher 13:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Titans

Weren't they actually of Titan heritage? At the very least their relatives, the oceanids where daughters to two Titans, Oceanus and Tethys. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 21:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Fanciful, unsourceable excursus

I have moved here the following:

Usually female, they were dressed in white, decked with garlands of flowers, but they frequently had unnatural legs, like those of a goat, donkey or cow. They were so beautiful that the highest compliment was to compare some feature of a woman (eyes, hair, etc.) with that of a nereid. They could move swiftly and invisibly, ride through the air and slip through small holes. Although not immortal, their lives exceeded a human's tenfold, and they retained their beauty until death.

Not "usually" but invariably female. Not "dressed" in anything. Not with cow or donkey legs, etc. Slipping through small holes is just unlettered silliness. Etc etc. --Wetman (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

wives and daughters of the polis?

The phrase "the restricted and chaste wives and daughters of the Greek polis" in the lead seems strange to me. Why wives and daughters rather than just "women"? Is that to emphasize their low status? But it seems an indirect and belittling way to do so. And why polis, as opposed to just "of ancient Greece?" Ccrrccrr (talk) 21:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to have missed this, as I've just reverted your change and my edit summary was too long, and therefore half-swallowed-up. The unfettered freedom of nymphs is telling contrast to the respectable "wives and daughters of the polis", who were subject to the authority of families, communities, laws and mores. "Women of Greece" could include female rustics, slaves and prostitutes. Haploidavey (talk) 15:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That makes sense. Glad to see my mistaken edit reverted. Ccrrccrr (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Chailae?

An IP from Ankara has twice added this to Nymph:

Chailae or Chailaes (snow nymph; also winter smile), other name variants include Chailes, Chailas or Chailaid; shows similarities with Aurae (breezes). Also goes by 'Çağıl' in certain parts of Anatolia.

Has anyone heard of these? I can't find the forms in Greek (TLG and Packard Inscriptions dB, Χαιλ- or even -λαιδ-) or Latin (PHI, Chael-), but the χ ... λ gives this a veneer of plausibility because of the etymological relation of "hail" and κάχληξ, "pebble". Çağıl is a toponym in Turkey and a male given name, as in Çağıl Uyar. This smells like a semi-learned hoax, but I can't be sure. Any insights?

This has now been twice reverted, and the IP asked to provide sources, should it wish to reintroduce. If anyone else has knowledge of these nymphs, please educate the rest of us. — cardiff | chestnut — 01:50, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Someone from a one-shot IP address deleted a major section about individual nymphs

Please when making major deletions discuss the change. It makes the anti-vandalism patrol easier to distinguish between vandalism and consensus changes. I undid the changes. Geraldshields11 (talk) 19:55, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

"Nymphs in Fantasy"

This section sounds more like a compilation of several fantasy scenario race descriptions. I think it is unencyclopedic to include it in such detail outside of a dedicated wiki, therefore I have shortened it greatly, to a sentence or two at most. Astatine211^Talk 22:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree, it was back and I deleted the whole thing again, I really don't see what descriptions of fantasy tropes have to do with Greek mythology especially in such a non sequitur fashion.

At least some nymphs apparently could grow old

The article states

Although they would never die of old age nor illness

Maybe they couldn't die from old age, I dunno, but at least some of them could grow old, see in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses', Book VII, 295, Liber (Dionysus) asked Medea to restore youth to his nurses, his nurses it were nymphs of the mount Nysa. 217.118.64.56 (talk) 15:01, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Fictional Nymph Attributes in the Introduction

The second paragraph says: "...and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing; their amorous freedom sets them apart from the restricted and chaste wives and daughters of the Greek polis."

I cannot find no sources that say this, and it appears as a incorrect assumption. Nymphs were mostly elusive and hidden for humankind, whose nature was to created, grew and maintained their environments. Even the Naiades were protector of the young, and could heal the sick with their waters they oversaw. If anything they were solemn, chaste and avoided humankind. The group of nymphs known as the Satyroi (Satyrs) were the exception, but most of these were male, and associated with Dionysus.

The text above is mostly wrong, and is not supported in the body of the article. I.e. Headings 'Ancient Greek mythology' nor 'Greek folk religion. Regardless, none of the connotations presented have adequate cites to support the text.

Furthermore the section on etymology is mostly wrong and is unrelated to nymphs at all. The 'sexual connotations' are mostly a modern twist, which are more related to fairies and the like. Arianewiki1 (talk) 23:50, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

New Bold Update

I have just made a broad update and have rewritten some parts of this article. I've have fixed / added various broken or new links heres, and have corrected several syntax or context errors.

New errors may have been accidental introduced and may need corrections. Arianewiki1 (talk) 06:38, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Types of nymphs

We have a number of articles on types or "species" of nymphs, though I think quite a few have some serious sourcing problems. There were AfDs on the Lampades and "Leimakids" a few months ago, and I recently redirected Eleionomae and greatly shortened Limnades. I think the following pages would benefit from some careful checking of sources:

• Alseid – sources added, tagged; remaining problems fixed
• Anthousai – redirected
• Auloniad – redirected
• Crinaeae – source added
• Daphnaie – source added
• Epimeliad – rewritten
• Hyades (mythology)
• Nephele – don't seem to be nymphs
• Oread – problems resolved
• Pegaeae – redirected
• Pegasides – part about being a type of nymph removed
• Potamides – greatly reduced, but now properly sourced

– Michael Aurel (talk) 01:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

This article is sadly just another example of the very poor state of our Classical articles as a whole. Almost all of them, including this one, should be rewritten from scratch. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:22, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes. In particular, a number of the entries in the table here look as though they were the result of someone going through a primary source and extracting a Greek term, without the figure (or group of figures) having any real existence in scholarly sources. This table and Template:Greek deities (nymphs) also give the (misguided) idea that all nymphs can be placed into some kind of precise taxonomy. – Michael Aurel (talk) 11:09, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm currently rewriting the Hyades page from scratch. Many of the nymph pages do indeed seem like they were created because someone really wanted to be able to group and list things. It is probably unsurprising that I would be quite happy to see some of them go. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 22:37, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I've dealt with a few of the smaller pages, and, yes, a number should probably just be redirected here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:05, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Suggesting Amnisiades as a candidate for a redirect, too. Can't find any secondary sources discussing them and they only seem to exist in Callimachus and the Ethnica. Endlesspumpkin (talk) 20:42, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

The more you look, the more of these pages you find... I've added what I've been able to find on them (which is hopefully enough to justify a separate page now, I think). – Michael Aurel (talk) 09:18, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Honestly I'd checked the Larson but only looked for the specific group name in the index. I discounted the Apollonius because it doesn't actually use the claimed title... which is, of course, part of the entire problem with this situation.

Are there some specific principles you're following here? One, I assume, is that if one ancient author mentions them by the collective title, any mentions of nymphs of that location can be taken as references to the group for the purposes of inclusion on the page, but it should not be implied that the specific term is used in those other sources.

But what's the best thing to do when the collective noun does not exist at all in any ancient source, but there are generic mentions of nymphs of X place, Y river, or Z landscape? Endlesspumpkin (talk) 11:34, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

All of these are good questions, the general answer to which is: whatever things are done (and whatever assumptions are made) in reliable, secondary sources, it's ok for us to do (or make) them as well. If an assumption isn't made in any secondary source, the best idea is probably not to make it. So at that page I've included Callimachus, Apollonius, and Stephanus because they are the sources cited or discussed by the RE or Petrovic (that said, I didn't use "Amnisiades" in mentioning Apollonius, as he doesn't use the collective noun), and, in general, whether references of the form "nymphs of [place x]" or "[thing y] nymphs" are to the nymphs in question should typically be determined by secondary sources (and whether they discuss/cite those passages).

If you have a passage from an ancient source for which you can't find a relevant secondary source (and you think its inclusion is WP:DUE), then things can be a little more complex (this situation should only come up occasionally, though):

• if one ancient author mentions them by the collective title, any mentions of nymphs of that location can be taken as references to the group for the purposes of inclusion on the page, but it should not be implied that the specific term is used in those other sources – Probably (and yes to the second point), though there will also be cases where "nymphs of [location x]" is a bit too generic to fit with a specific group; if there were some additional information in the source (eg. "nymphs of the Amnisos, companions of Artemis") then that would probably be sufficient to make the assumption that they're the same figures.
• when the collective noun does not exist at all in any ancient source, but there are generic mentions of nymphs of X place, Y river, or Z landscape? – In general, I wouldn't assume these kinds of references are to the nymphs in question without the backing of secondary sources. Two authors might both refer to "nymphs of the waterfalls" or what have you, but (unless there's some clear unifying information included) we can't really assume that they're referring to the same figures; they might have just both liked the idea of waterfall nymphs.

In general, though, secondary sources should be the determining factor; Grimal and the LIMC can be particularly helpful for finding relevant ancient sources, though for very minor figures your best bets are probably the RE, a comprehensive Greek dictionary, and (here specifically) Larson. – Michael Aurel (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you about how useful those sources are. It's certainly a shame that classics-related pages don't make better use of the LIMC; I've noticed the total lack of discussion of artistic sources across quite a few pages to do with classical myth. Partly, I suppose, because there's still an (unfortunate) general trend of valuing literary sources over visual culture. Larson is indeed invaluable here.

So if there's a page titled with a collective noun that doesn't exist in antiquity, what should be done with it? Deleted? Redirected? Renamed? A clarification on the page that the name is a modern invention, but here are some (following your example) nymphs to do with waterfalls? Endlesspumpkin (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Just redirect it. I would encourage you to completely rewrite these articles as you encounter them. 9 out of 10 times our Classics articles are just complete garbage and you'll have a much better time rewriting them with WP:RS in hand over trying to rehabilitate whatever junk is currently there. Drastic action is needed to improve these and bulldozing over remodeling will often be necessary. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:57, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

shame that classics-related pages don't make better use of the LIMC; I've noticed the total lack of discussion of artistic sources across quite a few pages – Couldn't agree more. The almost total absence of iconography sections across our articles is in my view one of our biggest issues (we have many, but it's one of the most glaring once you start noticing it).

with a collective noun that doesn't exist in antiquity, what should be done with it? Deleted? Redirected? Renamed? – If the figures themselves exist in secondary sources (ie. someone's just tacked on a problematic name), then rename it. If the figures themselves don't seem to exist in secondary sources – checking the sources I mentioned above, for example, would be enough to come to this conclusion – then yes, as bloodofox says, just redirect it here. If there was a source you missed, and they are mentioned somewhere, then little harm's been done; the page history's still there, and someone can restore and rewrite it at some point. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:26, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Relevant here is the discussion at User talk:Mr swordfish#Auloniad about the Auloniad article. A book by one Alexander Stuart Murray has been found as a source, though he doesn't cite any sources, and it's unclear to me where these figures have come from. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

After spending a little bit of time, it seems that αὐλωνιάδες (Auloniades), for example, is just an adjective, occasionally translated as "glen-loving". Nymph names seem to come from Orphic Hymns (αὐλωνιάδες is from Orph 51,7). Thus the attempts to distill, say, the Auloniad's properties from these texts are similar to studying the concordances of a particular color in the texts by Shakespeare: an interesting exercise for linguists, but with wildly different results from different authors. Disclaimer: I am not an expert by any means. Викидим (talk) 03:08, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, once you added Macedo, Kölligan & Barbieri I realised the passage responsible. The line occurs in the context of addressing the nymphs collectively, and is translated as: "visibili, invisibili, ricche di fiori, siete nelle valli" (Ricciardelli) or "visible and invisible, in ravines and among flowers" (Athanassakis & Wolkow). – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:25, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

If this interpretation is correct, the interpretation of Auloniad as a noun is a misunderstanding, yet a modified (to reflect the actual meaning) text will not fit WP:NOTDICT. The proper approach apparently is to return to the redirect, and have some text in the "List" section to explain the adjectives and their mapping to nymphs. The freshly added (to the sources in Auloniad) reference to Murr (1892( describes some types of nymphs in the text (pp. 45-47) and maps them to adjectives in the notes on the same page. I am not sure if this 130-year-old source is still valid, though. Викидим (talk) 08:41, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

The word αὐλωνιάδες itself is a noun (it's the plural of αὐλωνιάς), but yes, I'm not seeing any convincing sourcing for the "Auloniads" being a type of nymph. The mention of αὐλωνιάδες in the Orphic Hymns is, judging by translations, simply a way of saying that valleys are among the locations in which nymphs can be found. If this is the only ancient source for these figures, then the other claims about Eurydice and so on are suspect. So yes, I'd agree with restoring the redirect, removing mention of the term from Eurydice's article, and including whatever's worth mentioning in the table here. – Michael Aurel (talk) 15:21, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting my (zero-level) Greek. My proposal is to use the "Nymphae" entry in the very old (mid-19th century) Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology as a basis of classification. As an opposite of an expert on this subject, I would be perfectly OK with a judgment of other editors that this entry is too obsolete to be of any use. Викидим (talk) 19:54, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

The DGRBM is somewhat tricky as a source; despite its not infrequent lack of accuracy, it continues to be useful due to its comprehensiveness. Reading Schmitz's entry there, it isn't entirely clear to me whether he's intending for the reader to interpret the listed Greek terms each as types or "species" of nymphs, or just as general names which have been applied by authors in different contexts (my initial assumption was the latter, though the former would seem to be suggested by his statement that "The nymphs of the first class must again be sublatter divided into various species ...").

Whatever the case, looking at Ricciardelli's commentary on the passage from the Orphic Hymns, she marks the word as a hapax legomenon, which is enough for me to now feel confident that we can set aside the claims about Eurydice being an Auloniad and so on. Given that the passage in the Orphic Hymns is the only instance of the word, and translations don't treat it as being a type of nymph (owing likely to it not being a proper noun, and being used as part of an address), I think we can safely say that there isn't really a "type" of nymph here. As to where Murray (our source for them being a type of nymph) might have got his information, my guess would be modern poetry of some kind (eg. I notice the word in Madison Cawein [1]). – Michael Aurel (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

As I think there's general agreement here in favour of redirecting the page (or at least a lack of opposition to doing so), I've gone ahead and restored the redirect. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:35, 3 March 2025 (UTC)