Pygmy (Greek mythology) Pygmy (Greek mythology) The Pygmies ( "Pygmaioi", from the adjective πυγμαῖος from πυγμή "pygmē", "the length of the forearm") were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. According to the Iliad, they were involved in a constant war with the cranes, which migrated in winter to their homeland on the southern shores of the earth-encircling river Oceanus. One story describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beauty, and was transformed into a crane. In art the scene was popular with little Pygmies
Aegina (mythology) Aegina (mythology) Aegina (; ) was a figure of Greek mythology, the nymph of the island that bears her name, Aegina, lying in the Saronic Gulf between Attica and the Peloponnesos. The archaic Temple of Aphaea, the "Invisible Goddess", on the island was later subsumed by the cult of Athena. "Aphaia" (Ἀφαῖα) may be read as an attribute of Aegina that provides an epithet, or as a doublet of the goddess. Though the name "Aegina" betokens a goat-nymph, such as was Cretan Amalthea, she was given a mainland identity as the daughter of the river-god Asopus and the nymph Metope;