Tethys
titanΤηθύς
Titaness of fresh water
Tethys was the Titaness of fresh water — the great nurse of all life, whose thousands of river and spring children watered the earth.
The Myth
With Oceanus, she produced three thousand Oceanids and every river god in the Greek world. She raised Hera during the Titanomachy. She quarrelled with Callisto, forbidding her from bathing in Ocean — explaining why Ursa Major never sets below the horizon at Greek latitudes.
Parents
Gaia and Uranus
Children
Three thousand Oceanids, all river gods
Symbols
riversspringsnursingwater jar
Fun Fact
The prehistoric superocean Tethys was named after this Titaness by geologist Eduard Suess in 1893.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth: