CASTALIA

Form: Gr. Kastalia.

A nymph, the daughter of the river-god Achelous. Pursued by Apollo, she threw herself into a spring on Mount Parnassus, which took its name after her. The spring was consecrated to Apollo and the Muses, and it was in its water that the pilgrims to the neighbouring shrine of Delphi purified themselves. The Roman poets indulged in the fiction that it conferred poetic inspiration.