crinaeae

Notes

In Greek mythology, the crinaeae were the naiads, water nymphs, who protected and dwelled in fountains and wells. Sacred fountains and wells were intimately linked with inspiration in the Greek world: the Hippocrene fountain on Mount Helicon, formed by the hooves of Pegasus, was sacred to the Muses, and the Pirene fountain in Corinth, where Pegasus himself would drink, was visited by Roman poets in search of inspiration. Other fountains, like those at Delphi, were fed by the Castilian Spring, and thus were intertwined with sites of prophecy. As Robin Lane-Fox has it, ‘wherever there was water, there was a possible source of prophecy’.