Lelante

Not to be confused with Lelantos.

Lelante
Information
Gender	Female
Title	Queen
Children	Alcander, Megaletor, Philaeus (sons) Hyperippe (daughter)
Birthplace	Molossia

In Greek mythology, Lelante (Ancient Greek: Ληλάντη Lēlántē) is a minor figure, a queen of the Molossians, who was transformed into a bird by the will of Zeus, the god of justice, in order to escape a fiery death.

Family

She was the wife of the Molossian king Munichus and the mother by him of three sons, Philaeus, Alcander and Megaletor, and of a daughter Hyperippe.

Mythology

The entire family was seen as just and righteous and therefore especially favored by the gods. One day raiders attacked them in the fields; the family ran off to their house and began to throw various objects at them in self-defense, whereupon the offenders set the house ablaze. The god of justice, Zeus would not let his favourites suffer such a cruel and undeserving death that he changed them all six of them into various birds; Lelante became a green woodpecker.

See also

• Artemiche
• Erodius
• Hippodamia

Bibliography

• Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, Volume II: Books 9-15. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 43. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916.