Editing Naiad (section)

==Mythology==
[[File:John William Waterhouse - Undine.JPG|thumb|left|''[[Ondine (mythology)|Undine]]'', by [[John William Waterhouse]]]]

Naiads were often the object of archaic local cults, worshipped as essential to humans. Boys and girls at coming-of-age ceremonies dedicated their childish locks to the local naiad of the spring. In places like Lerna their waters' ritual cleansings were credited with magical medical properties. Animals were [[sacrifice|ritually drowned]] there. Oracles might be situated by ancient springs.

Naiads could be dangerous: [[Hylas]] of the ''[[Argo]]''’s crew was lost when he was taken by naiads fascinated by his beauty. The naiads were also believed to exhibit jealous tendencies. [[Theocritus]]'s story of naiad jealousy was that of a shepherd, [[Daphnis]], who was the lover of [[Nomia (mythology)|Nomia]] or Echenais; Daphnis had on several occasions been unfaithful to Nomia and as revenge she permanently blinded him. The nymph [[Salmacis]] raped [[Hermaphroditus]] and fused with him when he tried to escape.

The water nymph associated with particular springs was known all through Europe in places with no direct connection with Greece, surviving in the [[Celt]]ic wells of northwest Europe that have been rededicated to Saints, and in the medieval [[Melusine]].

Walter Burkert points out, "When in the ''[[Iliad]]'' [xx.4–9] [[Zeus]] calls the gods into assembly on Mount Olympus, it is not only the well-known [[Twelve Olympians|Olympians]] who come along, but also all the nymphs and all the rivers; [[Oceanus|Okeanos]] alone remains at his station",<ref name = Berkert>Burkert, III, 3.3, [https://books.google.com/books?id=sxurBtx6shoC&pg=PA174 p. 174].</ref> Greek hearers recognized this impossibility as the poet's [[hyperbole]], which proclaimed the universal power of Zeus over the ancient natural world: "the worship of these deities," Burkert confirms, "is limited only by the fact that they are inseparably identified with a specific locality."<ref name = Berkert/>