{i} (Greek Mythology) queen of Sparta, mother of Helen of Troy and Pollux (offspring of the union between Leda and Zeus in the form of a swan)
in Greek mythology, the wife of the king of Sparta, who had a sexual relationship with the god Zeus, when he changed himself into a swan (=a large white bird) to visit her secretly. In Greek legend, the daughter of King Thestius of Aetolia and wife of King Tyndareus of Lacedaemon. Visited by Zeus in the form of a swan, she conceived Helen of Troy. Zeus was also sometimes said to be the father of her son Pollux, while Leda's own husband, Tyndareus, was held to be the father of his twin, Castor (see Dioscuri). Tyndareus was also the father of Leda's daughter Clytemnestra, who married Agamemnon