Helen of Troy refuge with Leda. The swan gained her affection, and the two mated. Leda then produced an egg, from which Helen emerged. The First Vatican Mythographer introduces the notion that two eggs came from the union: one containing Castor and Pollux; one with Helen and Clytemnestra. Nevertheless, the same author earlier states that Helen, Castor and Pollux were produced from a single egg. Pseudo-Apollodorus states that Leda had intercourse with both Zeus and Tyndareus the night she conceived Helen. On the other hand, in the "Cypria", part of the Epic Cycle, Helen was the daughter of Zeus and the goddess Nemesis.
Helen of Troy "Helen", Hera fashioned a likeness of Helen ("eidolon", εἴδωλον) out of clouds at Zeus' request, Hermes took her to Egypt, and Helen never went to Troy instead spending the entire war in Egypt. "Eidolon" is also present in Stesichorus' account, but not in Herodotus' rationalizing version of the myth. In addition to these accounts, Lycophron 822 states that Hesiod was the first to mention Helen's "eidolon". This statement may mean Hesiod stated this in a literary work or that the idea was widely known/circulated in early archaic Greece during the time of Hesiod and was consequently attributed to him. Herodotus