Meliae

In Greek mythology, the Meliae (/ˈmiːliˌi/; Ancient Greek: Μελίαι Meliai or Μελιάδες Meliades) were nymphs of the ash tree, whose name they shared. They appeared from the drops of blood spilled when Cronus castrated Uranus, according to Hesiod, Theogony, 187. From the same blood sprang the Erinyes, suggesting perhaps that the ash-tree nymphs represented the Fates in milder guise, and the Giants. From the Meliae sprang the race of mankind of the Age of Bronze.

Description

The Meliae belong to a class of sisterhoods whose nature is to appear collectively and who are invoked in the plural, though genealogical myths, especially in Hesiod, give them individual names, such as Melia, "but these are quite clearly secondary and carry no great weight". The Melia thus singled out is one of these daughters of Oceanus. By her brother the river-god Inachus, she became the mother of Io, Phoroneus, Aegialeus or Phegeus, and Philodice. In other stories, she was the mother of Amycus by Poseidon, as the Olympian representative of Oceanus.