1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hippocrene

HIPPOCRENE (the “fountain of the horse,” ἡ ἵππου κρήνη), the spring on Mt Helicon, in Boeotia, which, like the other spring there, Aganippe, was sacred to the Muses and Apollo, and hence taken as the source of poetic inspiration. The spring, surrounded by an ancient wall, is now known as Kryopegadi or the cold spring. According to the legend, it was produced by the stamping of the hoof of Bellerophon’s horse Pegasus. The same story accounts for the Hippocrene in Troezen and the spring Peirene at Corinth.