According to
Philochorus, the Thriae were the nurses of
Apollo on
Mount Parnassus. Modern accounts make them
Naiads (
nymphs) of the sacred springs of the
Corycian Cave of Mount Parnassus in
Phocis, and the patrons of
bees. The nymphs had women's heads and torsos and lower body and wings of a bee. In a
fragment of the 5th-century BC mythographer
Pherecydes, the Thriae are said to be daughters of the god
Zeus. According to
Pausanias, their names were
Melaina (),
Cleodora (), and Daphnis () or
Corycia. The nymph sisters were romantically linked to the gods
Apollo and
Poseidon; Corycia, the sister after whom the
Corycian Cave was named, was the mother of
Lycoreus with
Apollo, Kleodora was loved by
Poseidon, and was the mother by him (or Kleopompos) of Parnassos (who founded the city of Parnassus) while Melaina was also loved by
Apollo, and bore him
Delphos (although another tradition names
Thyia as the mother of Delphos). These three bee maidens with the power of
divination and thus speaking truth are described in the
Homeric Hymn to Hermes, and the food of the gods is "identified as honey"; the bee maidens were originally associated with
Apollo, and are probably not correctly identified with the Thriae. Both the Thriae and the Bee Maidens are credited with assisting Apollo in developing his adult powers, but the divination that Apollo learned from the Thriae differs from that of the Bee Maidens. The type of divination taught by the Thriae to Apollo was that of mantic pebbles, the throwing of stones, rather than the type of divination associated with the Bee Maidens and Hermes:
cleromancy, the casting of lots. Honey, according to a Greek myth, was discovered by a nymph called Melissa ("Bee"); and honey was offered to the Greek gods from
Mycenean times. Bees were associated, too, with the
Delphic oracle and the prophetess was sometimes called a bee. == Notes ==