Hyades (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Hyades (Ancient Greek: Ὑάδες "the rainy ones"), are a sisterhood of nymphs that bring rain.

The Hyades were daughters of Atlas in most tellings and sisters of Hyas. The main myth concerning them is envisioned to account for their collective name and to provide an etiology for their weepy raininess: Hyas was killed in a hunting accident and the Hyades wept from their grief. They were changed into a cluster of stars, the Hyades set in the head of Taurus.

Their names are variable, according to the mythographer, and include :
 * Aesyle or Phaesyle
 * Ambrosia
 * Cleeia
 * Coronis
 * Eudora
 * Phaeo
 * Polyxo

Additionally, Thyone and Prodice were supposed to be daughters of Hyas by Aethra (one of the Oceanides), and have been added to the group of stars.

The Greeks believed that the rising and setting of the Hyades star cluster were always attended with rain, hence the association of the Hyades (sisters of Hyas) and the Hyades (daughters of ocean) with the constellation of the Hyades (rainy ones).

The Hyades are sisters to the Pleiades. They are also thought to have been the tutors of Dionysus, in some tellings of the latter's infancy, and as such are syncretized with the Nysiads, the nymphs who are also believed to have cared for Dionysus, as well as with other reputed nurses of the god - the Lamides and the Nymphai Naxiai.