Meleagrids

In Greek mythology, the Meleagrids (Μελεαγρίδες) were the daughters of Althaea and Oeneus, sisters of Meleager. When their brother died, they cried incessantly until Artemis changed them into guineafowl and transferred them to the island of Leros.[1][2][3][4] According to an alternate version cited in the dictionary of Suda, the Meleagrids were companions of Iocallis, a maiden of Leros who was honored as a deity.[4] Guinea fowl were kept in the shrine of The Maiden (likely Artemis) on Leros,[5] and the inhabitants of the island, as well as other worshippers of Artemis, abstained from eating the bird.[6]

Hence the names of some species of guineafowl refer to the Meleagrids: Numida meleagris and Agelastes meleagrides. Also the family name for turkeys is Meleagrididae.

The Meleagrids included Melanippe and Eurymede,[1] possibly also Mothone[7] and Perimede.[8] Two other daughters of Oeneus, Gorge and Deianeira, were not transformed, since the former was married off to Andraemon, and the latter to Heracles.

References

  1. 1 2 Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 2
  2. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses, VIII, 532-545
  3. ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae, 174
  4. 1 2 Suda s. v. Meleagrides
  5. ↑ Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned, 14. 71 p. 655C
  6. ↑ Aelian, On Animals, 4. 42
  7. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4. 35. 1
  8. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece, 7. 4. 1
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