A nymph, consort of Hellen, by whom he begot Dorus, Xuthus and Aeolus — the three sons through whom the Greek peoples branch and divide.1
She is named once and remembered for what she bore. In Apollodorus' line of descent from the flood, Hellen — son of Deucalion, the man who outlasted the deluge — has by the nymph Orseis three sons: Dorus, Xuthus and Aeolus. From this single coupling the stemma of the Hellenes opens. Of her own nature, parentage or waters the sources say nothing; she enters the record as a mother and nothing more, the unnamed spring from which the named rivers run.2
Through her sons the map of Greece is parcelled out. Hellen, having called his people Hellenes after himself, divided the land among the three she gave him: Xuthus received the Peloponnese and by Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, fathered Achaeus and Ion, from whom the Achaeans and Ionians are named; Dorus received the country over against the Peloponnese and called his settlers Dorians; and Aeolus reigned over the regions about Thessaly and named the Aeolians. Orseis, given no second appearance, stands at the head of the house of Aeolus by virtue of a single attested birth.3
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story