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Similar Erinyes, Doris, Nereid, Pleione | ||
Tiamat meliae
In Greek mythology, the Meliae (or Meliai) (/ˈmiːliˌi/; Ancient Greek: Μελίαι Meliai or Μελιάδες Meliades) were usually considered to be the nymphs of the ash tree, whose name they shared. According to Hesiod, the Meliae (probably meaning all tree-nymphs) were born from the drops of blood that fell on Gaia [Earth] when Cronus castrated Uranus. In Hesiod's Works and Days, the ash trees, perhaps meaning the Melian nymphs, are said to have been the progenitors of the generation of men belonging to Hesiod's Bronze Age.
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The Meliae were nurses of the infant Zeus in the Cretan Dikti mountains, according to the 3rd century BC poet Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, where they fed him on the milk of the goat Amalthea and honey.
Callimachus, appears to make the Theban nymph Melia, who was, by Apollo, the mother of Tenerus and Ismenus, one of the "earth-born" Meliae. Elsewhere, however, this Melia is an Oceanid, one of the many daughters of Oceanus and Tethys.
