Meliae
In Greek mythology, the Meliae were usually considered to be the nymphs of the ash tree, whose name they shared.Mythology
According to Hesiod, the Meliae were born from the drops of blood that fell on Gaia when Cronus castrated Uranus. In Hesiod's Works and Days, the ash trees, perhaps meaning the Melian nymphs, are said to have been the progenitors of the generation of men belonging to Hesiod's Bronze Age.
The Meliae were nurses of the infant Zeus in the Cretan Dikti mountains, according to the 3rd century BC poet Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus, where they fed him on the milk of the goat Amalthea and honey.
Callimachus appears to make the Theban nymph Melia, who was, by Apollo, the mother of Tenerus and Ismenus, one of the "earth-born" Meliae. Elsewhere, however, this Melia is an Oceanid, one of the many daughters of Oceanus and Tethys.
