Nephele

In classical Greek narrative sources Nephele is a personified mass of clouds (Νεφέλη). In one tradition Zeus created a cloud in the likeness of Hera to test the mortal Ixion; that cloud-figure (Nephele) was later assaulted by Ixion and became pregnant, producing the monstrous Centaurus. In a separate tradition Nephele is the wife of Athamas and mother of Phrixus and Helle; when the children were threatened she arranged their escape by means of a divine flying ram that carried them toward Colchis (during the flight Helle fell into the sea thereafter called the Hellespont).

Sources describe Nephele as a cloud fashioned in the image of Hera—i.e., externally taking the likeness of a divine woman—while her substance is that of a mass of clouds. No further consistent iconographic details (clothing, color beyond cloud, or fixed size) are supplied in the narrative summaries provided.

Nephele is an animate cloud-person: she can assume human likeness (notably Hera's appearance when fashioned by Zeus), interact with mortals, and in mythic logic bear offspring (the Centaurus in the Ixion episode). In the Athamas narrative she enables the survival of her children by arranging or sending them on a flying golden ram that conveys them away from mortal danger. She thus functions as both a created eidolon used in a divine test and as a protective maternal figure who can effect supernatural rescue.