Chelone

(Χελώνη), the tortoise. When all the gods, men, and animals were invited by Hermes to attend the wedding of Zeus and Hera, the nymph Chelone alone remained at home, to shew her disregard of the solemnity. But Hermes then descended from Olympus, threw Chelone's house, which stood on the bank of a river, together with the nymph, into the water, and changed her into a tortoise, who had henceforth to carry her house on her back. (Serv. ad Aen. 1.509.) [L.S]

(Χελώνη). A nymph who was the only one of the deities that did not attend the nuptials of Zeus and Heré, and who even made the celebration a subject of ridicule. Hermes thereupon precipitated her into a river, on the banks of which her mansion was situated, and transformed her into a tortoise, under which shape she was doomed to perpetual silence, and to the necessity of always carrying her dwelling about with her. The Greek for a tortoise is χελώνη, and hence the fable arose.

• Paus. 1.2.4