Philyra- Greek SpiritSpirit · Nymph"Daughter of Oceanus"

Kronos and the Stallion

Philyra was an Oceanid, one of the three thousand daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. The Titan Kronos desired her and pursued her to the coast of the Euxine Sea, where he caught up with her on an island that would afterward bear her name. Apollonius Rhodius records that the Argonauts passed this island on their voyage to Colchis, and pauses in his narrative to tell the old story of what happened there. When Kronos's wife Rhea came upon the lovers, the Titan panicked and changed himself into a stallion to disguise what he had done, then galloped away. But the disguise had consequences beyond concealment: Philyra had conceived, and because Kronos had coupled with her in equine form, the child she carried would be born a hybrid — human above the waist, horse below. Overcome with shame, Philyra left the island and traveled to the Pelasgian ridges, the wild mountain country near Thessalian Pelion, where she would give birth far from any witness.

The Linden Tree

When Philyra saw her son's form — a human torso joined to a horse's body — she was overcome with horror and revulsion. Unable to bear the sight of the child she had borne, she begged the gods to change her into anything other than what she was. They took pity and transformed her into a linden tree, philyra in Greek — the tree that bears her name. Hyginus records it as an act of divine mercy.

The child she could not face was Chiron. He grew to be tutor to Achilles and Asclepius, and Pindar calls him "the son of Philyra."