According to the myth, Leucosia, Parthenope, and Ligeia were three sirens who lived among the rocks along the Campanian coast.
Originally, they were playmates of Persephone, and were with her even when Hades, god of the Underworld, abducted her. It was Demeter, Persephone’s mother, who transformed them into sirens as punishment for failing to prevent her daughter’s kidnapping.
Thus, Leucosia and her sisters took refuge on the jagged rocks of the Tyrrhenian coast, and soon became a great danger to sailors: their songs spread across vast distances, and anyone who heard them—recognizing their voices as the sweetest ever heard on Earth—could not help but steer their ships toward the cliffs, shattering their hulls on the rocks.
They sang, it is said, poems inspired by Hades and the Afterlife.
Only Odysseus (also known as Ulysses), as Homer recounts, managed to resist their enchantment by devising a clever plan: he plugged his companions’ ears with wax and asked them to tie him to the mast, allowing him to pass unharmed while listening to their song.
Devastated by grief, the sirens chose to throw themselves into the sea from a high cliff, and the waves carried their bodies to different places along the Tyrrhenian coast.
Parthenope washed ashore at the mouth of the Sebeto River, where the Cumaeans would later found Neapolis (modern-day Naples); for this reason, Neapolitans are still often referred to as “Parthenopeans.”
Ligeia reached the Calabrian coast, specifically the city of Terina in Magna Graecia.
Finally, Leucosia’s body surfaced in the waters of the Gulf of Poseidonia (Paestum), giving her name to a small island near that city: Punta Licosa.
The Siren of Resina (A Legend from the Waters of Ercolano)
It is said that, long ago, a siren also lived in the waters off the coast of Ercolano.Unlike all the others, she was neither cruel nor deceitful. She dwelled among the warm currents of the Gulf and appeared only when the sea fell silent and Vesuvius slept.
Local fishermen who sailed those waters claimed to have seen her: an ethereal figure with long hair like golden seaweed, singing without a voice, moving her hands in the air like gentle waves.Some swore they glimpsed her among the rocks; others said she swam beside their boats, never touching them.
And so, as word spread, whenever a vessel approached the shore, sailors would lean out and shout toward the beach: “Where did you see the Siren?”
The locals would answer from afar, echoing the cry: “Here! The Siren, yes!”
But the wind, mischievous and dancing, loved to play with words. The waves broke them, the rocks bounced them back, and what reached the sailors’ ears was a different sound, transformed: “Here is Resina!”
Thus, for years, the desperate search for the siren gave its name to the place itself.People began to call that land Resina, like the echo of a sea-born song, like the memory of a creature that perhaps never was… or perhaps was.
Even today, when the wind blows from the south and the sea grows quiet, some swear they hear a name whispered among the waves.And no one can say whether it speaks of Siren… or Resina.