Nereids

[1] They often accompany Poseidon, the god of the sea, and can be friendly and helpful to sailors (such as the Argonauts in their search for the Golden Fleece).

They are represented as beautiful women, crowned with branches of red coral and dressed in white silk robes trimmed with gold.

In Homer's Iliad XVIII, when Thetis cries out in sympathy for the grief of Achilles for the slain Patroclus, her sisters appear.

Poseidon, in sympathy for them, sent a flood and a sea monster to the land of the Aethiopians, demanding as well the sacrifice of the princess.

On black-figure Greek vases they appear fully clothed, such as on a Corinthian hydra (sixth century BCE; Paris) where they stand near the bier of Achilles.

Famous is the Nereid Monument, a marble tomb from Xanthos (Lycia, Asia Minor), partially in the collection of the British Museum.

[53] Greek folklorist Nicolaos Politis amassed a great amount of modern folkloric material regarding the neraida.

[54] In modern tales from Greek tellers, the neraides are said to dance at noon or at midnight; to have beautiful golden hair; to dress in white or rose garments and to appear wearing a veil on the head, or holding a handkerchief.

Due to their beauty, young men are drawn to the neraides and steal their veils or kerchiefs to force their stay in the mortal realm.

This refers to a pseudo-historical or mythological account about Alexander the Great and a quest for a water of life that grants immortality.

[47][57] Richard MacGillivray Dawkins suggested that the modern gorgona was a merging of three mythological characters (the Sirens, the Gorgons, and the Scylla), and reported alternate tales where Alexander's sisters are replaced for his mother or a female lover.