Alphito (Ancient Greek: Ἀλφιτώ) is a supernatural being first recorded in the Moralia of Plutarch,[1] where "apotropaic nursery tales" about her[2] are told by nursemaids to frighten little children into behaving.
[9] Although evidence for Alphito rests in the minimal reference in Plutarch and an indirectly relevant entry in the lexicographer Hesychius,[citation needed] Graves developed an elaborate thesis that Alphito was "'the White Goddess', who in Classical times had degenerated into a nursery bugbear but who seems originally to have been the Danaan Barley-goddess of Argos.
In recent scholarship, Alphito is classed with spirits or demons that threaten reproduction and child-nurturing such as Acco, Gello, and Mormo.
[12] In the foreword to Maida Heatter's Cookies, Wolfgang Puck and Barbara Lazaroff compare the cookbook's author to Alphito: Maida Heatter is the fairy godmother of anything sweet, spicy, crunchy, chewy, or fluffy you could possibly imagine baking.
In Greek mythology, Maida, with her elegant halo of silver hair, would have been known as the goddess Alphito, the symbol of flour and lady guardian of the mill.