Heliades

Daughters of Helios and the Oceanid Clymene, the Heliades appear in the narrative cycle surrounding their brother Phaëthon. After Phaëthon is killed when he loses control of the sun-chariot and falls (traditionally into the river Eridanus), the Heliades grieve; classical authors relate that their grief caused them to be transformed into poplar trees. In variant accounts (noted by Hyginus) their transformation is described as a consequence of having yoked the chariot for Phaëthon without Helios' permission. Their tears are conventionally said to become amber, sometimes described as falling into the river connected to Phaëthon's fall.

Classical sources offer only limited human description: they are named daughters (different lists appear in different authors — examples include Merope, Helie, Aegle, Lampetia, Phoebe, Aetherie, Dioxippe, and the names Phaethousa / Phaethusa and Lampetia in Aeschylus' fragment). No detailed corporeal traits are provided in the cited excerpts. Their transformed appearance is explicit: they become poplar trees, described as 'weeping' with tears that turn into amber.

The Heliades' principal motif in the sources is lamentation: overwhelming grief for Phaëthon is the narrative cause of their metamorphosis into trees and the production of amber from their tears. In Hyginus' variant, their participation in yoking the sun-chariot is given as the causal action leading to transformation. These features function as etiological elements in myth (explaining the origin of poplars that seem to weep and of amber) rather than as consistently deployed supernatural 'powers' independent of the narrative context.