Nymph, in Latin this word means a new bride ; but the definition is completely different in mythology: the Poets used the word for the lesser divinities with which the universe was populated. There were those who were called uranian or celestial , who governed the realm of the heavens; others were called terrestrial or epigeal : the latter being subdivided into water nymphs and land nymphs .

The water nymphs are divided into several classes: the marine nymphs that are called Oceanids , Nereids , and Meliaie; the fountain nymphs , called Naiads, Krenaiai, and Pegaiai the river nymphs or Potamids ; and the lake or pond nymphs called Lymnads .

The land nymphs are also divided into several classes: the mountain nymphs that are called Oreads, Orestiads or Orodemniads ; the valley or woodland nymphs called Napaeae ; the prairie nymphs or Limoniads ; and the forest nymphs or Dryads and Hamadryads . All of those names indicate their habitat.

They also had several other names like Ionids, Ismenids, Lysiads, Themistiads , and hundreds of other names that were derived from their place of birth or from the places where they were worshiped, as interpreted by Pausanias and Strabon.

Not every nymph had immortality; but Hesiod made them live for thousands of years. They were offered milk, olive oil, and honey as sacrifice; and sometimes goats were sacrificed to them.

It is not easy to discover the origin of the nymphs ’ existence or of the fables that told their story. The idea of the nymph could have derived from the ancient belief that the souls of the deceased roamed near their tombs or in the gardens and woods that they often frequented during their lives. There was also a religious respect for these places. As the shadows of those who had lived there were invoked, one tried to make them happy by means of wishes and sacrifices, in order to engage them to stay watch over their herds and homes. Meursius noted that the word nymphé is Greek for the Phoenician word néphas which means soul. He added that this opinion, as well as several others from that time, originated with the Phoenicians.

This conjecture about the origin of nymphs could once again be supported by the concept one had that the stars were alive. This idea was then extended to rivers, fountains, mountains and valleys, all of which were assigned protection by the gods.

Later, ladies who were renowned for certain adventures were called nymphs. It was no doubt for this reason that Homer used the term nymphs for Phaethusa and Lampetia, who tended the herds of their father, the sun god, in Sicily.

One brought honor to simple shepherdesses with the name nymph; and all of the ancient and modern poets embellished their poems with this new idea. But as it was Diodorus who reported that the ladies of Atlantis were commonly called nymphs , it seems that it was in that country that the idea of the existence of goddesses was born because it is said that it was in the delicious gardens of Mauritania Tingitana, near Mount Atlas, where the souls of heroes lived after their death.

As for the metamorphoses of so many who were changed into nymphs, Naiads, Oreads, Nereids, Dryads, Hamadryads, etc., it was thought that when some renowned ladies disappeared, they perished in the sea or in the woods. The ordinary explanation was that Diana or some other god had changed them into nymphs. Such was the case with Egeria, the famous nymph that Numa Pompilius often consulted in the forest of Aricia. After the death of the prince (Numa Pompilius), the Romans did not find the marvelous nymph, but only a fountain. They believed that it was due to the metamorphosis of the nymph into a fountain.

We will say nothing here of Homer’s beautiful description of the nymph’s lair, nor of the poetry in which Horace represents Bacchus teaching the nymphs : vidi Bacchum docentem nyphas . One would surely not be happy with the allegories that some authors have found there, and even less with the obscenities that a certain stoic philosopher, a grave and serious man, has uttered on this subject in his rustic hexaemeron.

But we can certainly say a word of the furor experienced by those who had accidentally seen a nymph bathing. Ovid himself feared that happening, as he explains to us in IV. liv. Fasti , when he says:

Nec Dryadas, nec nos videamus labra Dianoe, Nec faunum medio dùm permit aura die. “Never can we perceive Diane, nor the wood nymphs , nor the horned faun when they scour the country in the middle of the day.”

Propertius alludes to that in liv. III. Elegies. xii , when explaining the felicity of the first centuries, he says:

Nec fuerat nudas poena videre deas. “Thus for having seen some naked nymphs , never had one been punished so rigorously.”

Those who were smitten by this furor for nymphs called themselves νυμφόληπτοι in Greek and lymphatici in Latin. Festus says the waters are called lymphs, from the name nymphs , because it was previously believed that all who had even seen the image of a nymph in a fountain were smitten by the furor for the rest of their lives. The Greeks called them nymphoplepti & the Romans lymphatici.

Plutarch, in his life of Aristides, says “the cave of the sphragid nymphs is situated on one of the ridges of Mount Cithaeron; where there formerly was an oracle whose spirit caused many to go mad; and caused them to be called nympholepti ”.