Leda and the Swan and Other Stories by Mike Kennedy

For those unfamiliar with the Trojan War, the inciting incident would be after Paris chose Aphrodite as the fairest or most beautiful goddess between Aphrodite, Hera and Athena. Once she was of age, Helen blossomed into the most beautiful female in all of mankind, a quality that would lead to great ruin. While each of these four children are quite notable, Helen of Troy is likely the one that most people have heard of. This mixing of mortality and divinity is often regarded as a quirk of the closeness between Leda’s time with swan-Zeus and with King Tyndareus. Helen is always acknowledged as a daughter of Zeus. Pollux is often acknowledged as a son of Zeus while Castor, his twin, was often acknowledged as a son of Tyndareus. Pollux is always immortal in versions where only one child is divine. Regardless of the number of eggs in the tellings, one thing that is commonly agreed upon is that not all of the children are stated to be divine, i.e. Leda takes it as a sign from the gods that she should raise the child. In these versions, only a single egg hatches and Helen emerges. In these versions, eggs are still produced but a farmer discovers them and gives them to Queen Leda, likely because he believed her beautiful and femininity would leave her better suited to watching eggs than someone who has to work long hours far afield. Other versions of the story indicate that the eggs were the result of relations between Zeus and Nemesis, goddess of vengeance. These eggs would eventually hatch, revealing children.

Soon after her unique encounter with the swan, Leda would lay one or two eggs, depending on the version of the story being told.

Later on in the same day as her unknowing encounter with Zeus, Leda would sleep with her husband, the king of Sparta. Zeus, still in the guise of a swan, laid down next to Leda and proceeded to give her children. Worried for the health of the poor creature, Leda shooed away the eagle. Seeking to sow some more of his many wild oats, Zeus descended to the realm of the mortals in the guise of a swan that was being chased by an eagle. One day after Leda was married to King Tyndareus, her beauty managed to catch the attention of Zeus from his throne atop Mount Olympus.

Leda only really figures into a story involving Zeus, king of the gods. Although she did not accomplish much in the grand scheme beyond her work as a mother, she was quite beautiful and her beauty is what brings her into the world of Greek mythology. Leda was a princess of King Thestius, also known as the name Thestias, until such time that she married off to Sparta’s King Tyndareus.

Leda and the Swan and Other Stories by Mike Kennedy