Alcyone (; ), in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, was the name of one of the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...

, daughters of

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

and Pleione or, more rarely, Aethra. She attracted the attention of the god

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

and bore him several children, variously named in the sources:

Hyrieus In Greek mythology, Hyrieus (; ) was the eponym of Hyria (Boeotia), Hyria in Boeotia, where he dwelt and where Orion (mythology), Orion (see below) was born; some sources though place him either in Thrace or on Chios.Hyginus (Fabulae), Hyginus, ''Fa ...

, Hyperenor, and Aethusa; Hyperes and Anthas; and Epopeus. By a mortal, Anthedon, Alcyone became the mother of the fisherman

Glaucus In Greek mythology, Glaucus (; ) was a Greek prophetic sea-god, born mortal and turned immortal upon eating a magical herb. It was believed that he came to the rescue of sailors and fishermen in storms, having earlier earned a living from the ...

, who was later transformed into a marine god.

Etymology

Alkyóne comes from alkyón (), which refers to a sea-bird with a mournful song or to a

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species living in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

bird in particular. The meaning(s) of the words is uncertain because ''alkyón'' is considered to be of pre-

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, non-

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

origin. However,

folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...

related them to the ''háls'' (, "brine, sea, salt") and ''kyéo'' (, "I conceive"). Alkyóne originally is written with a

smooth breathing The smooth breathing (; ''psilí''; ) is a diacritical mark used in polytonic orthography. In Ancient Greek, it marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative from the beginning of a word. Some authorities have interpreted it as repr ...

mark, but this false origin beginning with a

rough breathing In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even af ...

mark (transliterated as the letter H) led to the common misspellings ''halkyón'' () and ''Halkyóne'' (), and thus the name of one of the kingfisher bird

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

' in English Halcyon. It is also speculated that Alkyóne is derived from ''alké'' (, "prowess, battle, guard") and ''onéo'' (, from , ''onínemi'', "to help, to please").

Notes

References

Athenaeus of Naucratis Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The ''Suda'' says on ...

. ''The Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned.'' London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*

. ''Deipnosophistae''. Kaibel. In Aedibus B.G. Teubneri. Lipsiae. 1887
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Hyginus Hyginus may refer to: People *Hyginus, the author of the '' Fabulae'', an important ancient Latin source for Greek mythology. *Hyginus, the author of the ''Astronomia'', a popular ancient Latin guide on astronomy, probably the same as the author ...

, ''Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus'' translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* M. Grant and J. Hazel, ''Who's Who in Greek Mythology'', David McKay and Co Inc, 1979 * Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Apollodorus Apollodorus ( Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A ...

, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Publius Ovidius Naso, ''The Epistles of Ovid.'' London. J. Nunn, Great-Queen-Street; R. Priestly, 143, High-Holborn; R. Lea, Greek-Street, Soho; and J. Rodwell, New-Bond-Street. 1813
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
{{Authority control Pleiades (Greek mythology) Women of Poseidon Mythological Arcadians Arcadian mythology Boeotian mythology