(Νύμφαι), the name of a numerous class of inferior female divinities, though they are designated by the title of Olympian, are called to meetings of the gods in Olympus, and described as the daughters of Zeus. But they were believed to dwell on earth in groves, on the summits of mountains, in rivers, streams, glens, and grottoes. (Hom. Od. 6.123, &c., 12.318, Il. 20.8, 24.615.) Homer further describes them as presiding over game, accompanying Artemis, dancing with her, weaving in their grottoes purple garments. and kindly watching over the fate of mortals. (Od. 6.105, 9.154, 13.107, 356, 17.243, Il. 6.420, 616.) Men offer up sacrifices either to them alone, or in conjunction with other gods, such as Hermes. (Od. 13.350, 17.211, 240, 14.435.) From the places which they inhabit, they are called ἀγρονόμοι (Od. 6.105),ὀρεστιάδες (Il. 6.420), and νηϊάδες (Od. 13.104).
All nymphs, whose number is almost infinite, may be divided into two great classes. The first class embraces those who must be regarded as a kind of inferior divinities, recognised in the worship of nature. The early Greeks saw in all the phenomena of ordinary nature some manifestation of the deity; springs, rivers, grottoes, trees, and mountains, all seemed to them fraught with life; and all were only the visible embodiments of so many divine agents. The salutary and beneficent powers of nature were thus personified, and regarded as so many divinities; and the sensations produced on man in the contemplation of nature, such as awe, terror, joy, delight, were ascribed to the agency of the various divinities of nature. The second class of nymphs are personifications of tribes, races, and states, such as Cyrene, and many others.
The nymphs of the first class must again be sublatter divided into various species, according to the different parts of nature of which they are the representatives.
[L.S]