page_title: Shapeshifting
section_title: Greco-Roman
hierarchical_section_title: Shapeshifting / Folklore and mythology / Greco-Roman
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of Ler and the swans by Harold Robert MillarFrom: Squire, Charles&#32;(n.d.),&#32;“Chapter 1: The Gods in Exile”, in&#32;Celtic Myth And Legend Poetry And Romance, London&#58; Gresham Publishing Company, page 144. Originally published under the title The Mythology of the British Islands, London: Blackie and Son, 1905.
context_page_description: In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ability. The idea of shapeshifting is in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existant literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common trope in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture.
context_section_description: Examples of shapeshifting in classical literature include many examples in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Circe's transforming of Odysseus' men to pigs in Homer's The Odyssey, and Apuleius's Lucius becoming a donkey in The Golden Ass. Proteus was noted among the gods for his shapeshifting; both Menelaus and Aristaeus seized him to win information from him, and succeeded only because they held on during his various changes. Nereus told Heracles where to find the Apples of the Hesperides for the same reason.
  The Titan Metis, the first wife of Zeus and the mother of the goddess Athena, was believed to be able to change her appearance into anything she wanted. In one story, she was so proud, that her husband, Zeus, tricked her into changing into a fly. He then swallowed her because he feared that he and Metis would have a son who would be more powerful than Zeus himself. Metis, however, was already pregnant. She stayed alive inside his head and built armor for her daughter. The banging of her metalworking made Zeus have a headache, so Hephaestus clove his head with an axe. Athena sprang from her father's head, fully grown, and in battle armor.
  In Greek mythology, the transformation is often a punishment from the gods to humans who crossed them.
  Zeus transformed King Lycaon and his children into wolves (hence lycanthropy) as a punishment for either killing Zeus' children or serving him the flesh of Lycaon's own murdered son Nyctimus, depending on the exact version of the myth.
  Ares assigned  Alectryon to keep watch for the other gods during his affair with Aphrodite, but Alectryon fell asleep, leading to their discovery and humiliation that morning. Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows to signal the morning.
  Demeter transformed Ascalabus into a lizard for mocking her sorrow and thirst during her search for her daughter Persephone. She also turned King Lyncus into a lynx for trying to murder her prophet Triptolemus.
  Athena transformed Arachne into a spider for challenging her as a weaver and/or weaving a tapestry that insulted the gods. She also turned Nyctimene into an owl, though in this case it was an act of mercy, as the girl wished to hide from the daylight out of shame from being raped by her father.
  Artemis transformed Actaeon into a stag for spying on her bathing, and he was later devoured by his own hunting dogs.
  Galanthis was transformed into a weasel or cat after interfering in Hera's plans to hinder the birth of Heracles.
  Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions after making love in a temple dedicated to Zeus or Cybele.
  Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos, a nymph who was raped by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection.
  Hera punished young Tiresias by transforming him into a woman and, seven years later, back into a man.
  King Tereus, his wife Procne and her sister Philomela were all turned into birds (a hoopoe, a swallow and a nightingale respectively), after Tereus raped Philomela and cut out her tongue, and in revenge she and Procne served him the flesh of his murdered son Itys.
  While the Greek gods could use transformation punitively – such as Medusa, turned to a monster for having sexual intercourse with Poseidon in Athena's temple – even more frequently, the tales using it are of amorous adventure. Zeus repeatedly transformed himself to approach mortals as a means of gaining access:
  Danaë as a shower of gold
  Europa as a bull
  Leda as a swan
  Ganymede, as an eagle
  Alcmene as her husband Amphitryon
  Hera as a cuckoo
  Leto as a quail
  Semele as a mortal shepherd
  Io, as a cloud
  Nemesis (Goddess of retribution) transformed into a goose to escape Zeus' advances, but he turned into a swan. She later bore the egg in which Helen of Troy was found.
  Vertumnus transformed himself into an old woman to gain entry to Pomona's orchard; there, he persuaded her to marry him.
  In other tales, the woman appealed to other gods to protect her from rape, and was transformed (Daphne into laurel, Cornix into a crow). Unlike Zeus and other gods' shapeshifting, these women were permanently metamorphosed.
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caption: The Children of Lir, transformed into swans in Irish tales
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