HARPIES The three daughters of the Giant Thaumas and the Okeanid nymph Elektra, the Harpies were employed by the gods to punish crime on the Earth. Their names were Okypete, Aello and Kelaeno, also called Podarge. Their bodies were those of birds, the heads women's, and their manner of punishing a wrongdoer was to carry off all his food, or failing that, to foul it so that the criminal could not eat it. One such person who received such treatment from the Harpies was Phineas, a king of Thrace, who was eventually freed of the curse of the triple sisters by the Argonauts.