Cetus (mythology) in the context of "Andromeda (constellation)"

In Greek mythology, Perseus (US: /ˈpɜːr.si.əs/ , UK: /ˈpɜː.sjuːs/; Greek: Περσεύς, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. He beheaded the Gorgon Medusa for Polydectes and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. He was a demigod, being the son of Zeus and the mortal Danaë, as well as the half-brother and great-grandfather of Heracles (as they were both children of Zeus, and Heracles's mother was Perseus's granddaughter).

In Greek mythology, Andromeda (/ænˈdrɒmɪdə/; Ancient Greek: Ἀνδρομέδα, romanized: Androméda or Ἀνδρομέδη, Andromédē) is the daughter of Cepheus, the king of Aethiopia, and his wife, Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she (or Andromeda) is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Queen Cassiopeia understands that chaining Andromeda to a rock as a human sacrifice is what will appease Poseidon. Perseus finds her as he is coming back from his quest to decapitate Medusa, and brings her back to Greece to marry her and let her reign as his queen. With the head of Medusa, Perseus petrifies Cetus to stop it from terrorizing the coast any longer.

As a subject, Andromeda has been popular in art since classical antiquity; rescued by a Greek hero, Andromeda's narration is considered the forerunner to the "princess and dragon" motif. From the Renaissance, interest revived in the original story, typically as derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The story has appeared many times in such diverse media as plays, poetry, novels, operas, classical and popular music, film, and paintings. A significant part of the northern sky contains several constellations named after the story's figures; in particular, the constellation Andromeda is named after her.

Cetaceans (/sɪˈteɪʃə/; from Latin cetus 'whale', from Ancient Greek κῆτος (kêtos) 'huge fish, sea monster') are aquatic mammals belonging to the infraorder Cetacea, in the order Artiodactyla. Cetaceans include whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel themselves through the water with powerful up-and-down movements of their tail, which ends in a paddle-like fluke, using their flipper-shaped forelimbs to steer.

While the majority of cetaceans live in marine environments, a small number reside solely in brackish or fresh water. Having a cosmopolitan distribution, they can be found in some rivers and all of Earth's oceans, and many species migrate throughout vast ranges with the changing of the seasons.

In Greek mythology, Scylla (/ˈsɪlə/ SIL-ə; Ancient Greek: Σκύλλα, romanized: Skýlla, pronounced [skýlːa]) is a legendary, man-eating monster that lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart, the sea-swallowing monster Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid the whirlpools of Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.

Scylla is first attested in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew encounter her and Charybdis on their travels. Later myth provides an origin story as a beautiful nymph who is transformed into a monster.

Andromeda is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy, and one of the 88 modern constellations. Located in the northern celestial hemisphere, it is named for Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia, in the Greek myth, who was chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster Cetus. Andromeda is most prominent during autumn evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, along with several other constellations named for characters in the Perseus myth. Because of its northern declination, Andromeda is visible only north of 40° south latitude; for observers farther south, it always lies below the horizon. It is one of the largest constellations, with an area of 722 square degrees. This is over 1,400 times the size of the full moon, 55% of the size of the largest constellation, Hydra, and over 10 times the size of the smallest constellation, Crux.

Its brightest star, Alpheratz (Alpha Andromedae), is a binary star that has also been counted as a part of Pegasus, while Gamma Andromedae (Almach) is a colorful binary and a popular target for amateur astronomers. With a variable brightness similar to Alpheratz, Mirach (Beta Andromedae) is a red giant, its color visible to the naked eye. The constellation's most obvious deep-sky object is the naked-eye Andromeda Galaxy (M31, also called the Great Galaxy of Andromeda), the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and one of the brightest Messier objects. Several fainter galaxies, including M31's companions M110 and M32, as well as the more distant NGC 891, lie within Andromeda. The Blue Snowball Nebula, a planetary nebula, is visible in a telescope as a blue circular object.

A sea serpent is a type of sea monster described in various mythologies and religious texts, most notably Mesopotamian (Tiamat), Ugaritic (Yam, Tannin), Judaic (Leviathan, Rahab), ancient Greek (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla), Vedic (Vritra,Surasa) and Norse (Jörmungandr).

Princess and dragon is an archetypical premise common to many legends, fairy tales, and chivalric romances. Northrop Frye identified it as a central form of the quest romance.

The story involves an upper-class woman, generally a princess or similar high-ranking nobility, saved from a dragon, either a literal dragon or a similar danger, by the virtuous hero (see damsel in distress). She may be the first woman endangered by the peril, or may be the end of a long succession of women who were not of as high birth as she is, nor as fortunate. Normally the princess ends up married to the dragonslayer.