Byssa

deity earth Greek single tradition · 2

Byssa is the daughter of Eumelus and sister of Agron and Meropis. She dwelt at Meropis in Kos and worshipped Gaia, who rewarded them with all kinds of goods. Byssa was transformed into a bird known as "byssa", sacred to Leucothea.

↻ synthesized from 2 sources

When

First attested
800 BCE
Attested period
-800 – 2020
Historical notes
Classical Greece

Relationships

allied with
Meropis, Agron, Eumelus, Gaia
sibling of
Agron
manifests as
bird known as "byssa", bird
child of
Eumelus

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Sources

Source passages

“In Greek mythology, Agron(Ancient Greek: Ἄγρων, lit. 'wild' or 'rustic') was a son of Eumelus and brother of Byssa and Meropis. Byssa was transformed into a bird known as "byssa", sacred to Leucothea, and Agron was changed by Hermes into a plover.”

#42293 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“It has been suggested that the bird Byssa turned into is some sort of horned owl, given its resemblance to the words buza, buxa and buas (which refer to owls), but Francis Celoria noted that a bird sacred to Leucothea would surely have to be some sort of seabird, a shearwater or a gull.”

#42389 · extracted by deepseek/deepseek-chat