Leda (mythology) and by him, mother of Helen of Troy, Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux (also spelled "Castor and Polydeuces"). Leda also had other daughters by Tyndareus: Timandra, Phoebe, and Philonoe. Leda was admired by Zeus, who seduced her in the guise of a swan. As a swan, Zeus fell into her arms for protection from a pursuing eagle. Their consummation, on the same night as Leda lay with her husband Tyndareus, resulted in two eggs from which hatched Helen (later known as the beautiful "Helen of Troy"), Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux (also known as the Dioscuri). Which children are the
Castor and Pollux or heroes concerned. The domestic setting of the "theoxenia" was a characteristic distinction accorded to the Dioskouroi. The image of the twins attending a goddess are widespread and link the Dioskouroi with the male societies of initiates under the aegis of the Anatolian Great Goddess and the great gods of Samothrace. The Dioscuri are the inventors of war dances, which characterize the Kuretes. The heavenly twins also appear in the Indo-European tradition as the effulgent Vedic brother-horsemen the Ashvins, the Lithuanian Ašvieniai, the Germanic Alcis., and the Venetic Alkomnoi of Este. From the fifth century BC onwards, the brothers were