Editing Helle (mythology) (section)

==Mythology==
[[Phrixus]], son of King [[Athamas]] of [[Boeotia]] and the half-[[nymph]] [[Nephele]], along with his younger sister, Helle, were hated by their stepmother, [[Ino (Greek mythology)|Ino]]. Ino hatched a devious plot to get rid of the children, roasting all the town's crop seeds so they would not grow. The local farmers, frightened of famine, asked a nearby oracle for assistance. Ino bribed the men sent to the [[oracle]] to lie and tell the others that the oracle required the sacrifice of Phrixus.

Yet before he was killed, Phrixus and Helle were rescued by a flying golden ram sent by Nephele, their natural mother. For reasons unknown, Helle fell off the ram into the [[Hellespont]] (which was subsequently named after her) and either drowned or was rescued by [[Poseidon]]{{citation needed|date=October 2024}} and turned into a sea-goddess, but Phrixus survived all the way to [[Colchis]], where King [[Aeetes]] took him in and treated him kindly, giving Phrixus his daughter, [[Chalciope]], in marriage. In gratitude, Phrixus gave the king the [[golden fleece]] of the ram, which [[Aeetes]] placed in a consecrated grove, under the care of a sleepless dragon.

With the Greek god Poseidon, Helle was the mother of the giant [[Almops]] and [[Paeon (son of Poseidon)|Paeon]] (called Edonus in some accounts).<ref>{{cite book  | last = Bell  | first = Robert E.  | title = Women of Classical Mythology  | publisher = [[ABC-CLIO]]  | date = 1991  | pages = [https://archive.org/details/womenofclassical00bell/page/230 230]  | url = https://archive.org/details/womenofclassical00bell/page/230  | isbn = 0-87436-581-3  | url-access = registration  }}</ref><ref name="DGRBM2">{{cite encyclopedia | last = Smith | first = William | author-link = William Smith (lexicographer) | title = Paeon | editor = William Smith | editor-link = William Smith (lexicographer) | encyclopedia = [[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]] | volume = 3 | pages = 83 | publisher = [[Little, Brown and Company]] | location = Boston | year = 1867 | url = http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moa;cc=moa;idno=acl3129.0003.001;q1=paeon;size=l;frm=frameset;seq=91}}</ref>