Cephalus, in Greek mythology, son of Hermes and Herse, daughter of Cecrops, king of Athens. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, he was beloved by the goddess Dawn (Eos, or Aurora), who carried him off to live with her on Mount Olympus. With his hound, Laelaps (Hurricane), he overcame the vixen of Teumessus that had ravaged Boeotia. Ovid (Metamorphoses, Book VII) confused this Cephalus with Cephalus, son of Deion, king of Phocis, and husband of Procris, daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens. In this version of the story, Cephalus’s devotion to hunting aroused in Procris suspicions that she had a rival, and so she followed him. Emerging suddenly from a thicket, she was fatally struck by Cephalus, who mistook her for his prey. Later legends by false etymology made Cephalus the founder of the Ionian island community of Cephallenia and linked him with the ancestry of Odysseus.