Chelidon (mythology)

'swallow') is a minor figure, a noblewoman from either the city of Miletus or Colophon in an Anatolian variant of the story of Philomela,[1] though she might have had an independent origin in Attica.

[2] Eustathius of Thessalonica wrote that the name of Pandareus's wife was Harmothoë, although he does not list Chelidon among their daughters (Aëdon, Cleothera and Merope) and mentions no brother.

Angered over what they perceived as her betrayal, Pandareus, his unnamed wife and son attacked her, so Zeus decided to turn them all into birds.

Unlike Chelidon, Philomela had her tongue cut by Tereus (Polytechnus) so she had to weave a tapestry in order to inform her sister.

[8] However, both Chelidon and Aëdon appear to individually predate the myth of Procne and Philomela, which seems to have been shaped to its current form by the Athenian playwright Sophocles in his lost play Tereus.

[11] It has been suggested the story crossed the Aegean from Asia Minor, Pandareus was mixed up with Pandion, and thus the myths of the nightingale and the swallow were combined and joined the Athenian mythos.