For a selection of uses of the phrase "halcyon days" see web address 1 below. Note that the initial h-, used in English from Shakespeare's day to our own but not in other languages such as French, is not found here or in most Greek sources (but is found in our texts of some ancient grammarians). It comes from an apparently false etymology of these words from the root for salt, hal- (see alpha 1300). The kingfisher was well known for its mournful, lamenting cry, usually derived from the death and metamorphosis of Alkyone (see alpha 1299), but here associated with the leader of the Giants in the Gigantomachy. Its cry was taken as one of ill-omen (e.g. Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.1085).
[1] cf. the scholia to Aristophanes, Birds 250.
[2] The halcyon days were associated with a habit of nesting and incubating for 7 days on either side of the winter solstice, a total of 14 days, described first by the poet Simonides in a fragment (PMG 508 Page) from his Victory Odes for the Pentathlon (this poet was probably the first to try to immortalize in grand choral odes the transitory glory of athletic victory), then by Aristotle -- quoting Simonides -- in History of Animals 542b4-24. During those days, especially around Sicily, the seas were calm and the weather clear; hence the phrase. Aristotle's description is the basis of the present entry and those in lexica by Pausanias the Atticist, Photius, and others.
[3] Demagoras fr. 3 FHG (4.378); Philochorus FGrH 328 F186. (For Philochorus see phi 441 and generally OCD(4) s.v.) The numbers in the text of the Suda are corrupt and must be emended: the figure in Simonides and Aristotle is unambiguously 14.
[4] Hegesander (or Hegesandros) of Delphi compiled, in the C2 BC, at least 6 books of unreliable Memoirs, often cited by Athenaeus; see OCD(4) s.v. (This is his fr. 46 FHG = 4.422.) Some authorities believe that the nest floated on the calm sea for those days, but others were aware that the kingfisher nests in the sand. Lucian in his True Histories tells of an imaginary giant kingfisher, but the ancients seem to have thought of the real kingfisher, beloved by Zeus, who calms the weather for its nesting (Simonides). The Alcyon Sea was so named, according to Strabo, because this corner of the Gulf of Corinth is both a nesting place for the kingfisher and a stretch sheltered from the wind.
[5] cf. phi 672.
[6] cf. alpha 2505.
[7] cf. mu 434.
[8] cf. already alpha 1287.
[9] cf. pi 79, where the name is (correctly) "Pallene".
[10] cf. delta 1529.
[11] cf. alpha 4231.
[12] In the Greek, *)alkuo/neios (almost unattested outside lexicography) rather than *)alkuoni/s.

Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. registers three poleis of this name, in 'Lakonike', Cyprus and Crete. The first of them is most likely to have generated this Suda entry and its counterparts (Hesychius alpha2045; Ambrosian Lexicon 320, according to Adler; and Etymologicum Magnum 37.38), given its mention in Homer: at Iliad 9.152 (again 294) it is one of the seven named ptoliethra given by Agamemenon to appease Achilles.
That they are all described as being 'near sandy Pylos' places them not in Argos [Myth, Place] (Hesychius) or Laconia (Steph.Byz.) but Messenia, in the SW Peloponnese. As to Aipeia itself, specifically, Strabo 8.4.5 noted identifications of it with Thouria or Methone/Mothone (mu 1189), while in Pausanias 4.34.5 it is Korone.
See Graham Shipley, 'Messenia' in Hansen & Nielsen 540-568, at 552 and (twice) 555.

C5 BCE (died 422). See generally OCD(4) s.v. (p.248). The source(s) of the present mini-biography of him (ending at 'the Archidamian') cannot be identified.
[1] Tellis is attested as one of the Spartan signatories to the Peace of Nikias in 421 (Thucydides 5.19.2). Brasidas' mother was named Argileonis (Plutarch, Moralia 240C).
[2] Contrary to the impression given here, Methone never revolted against Sparta. It was a perioikic town on the Messenian coast, which an Athenian naval expedition raided in 431, the first year of the Peloponnesian War. Brasidas, who happened to be nearby, rushed to the town with one hundred hoplites and managed to save it from capture by the Athenians (Thuc. 2.25.2.). In the following year, possibly as a result of his services at Methone, Brasidas was chosen as eponymous ephor at Sparta (Xenophon, Hellenica 2.3.10; Diodorus Siculus 12.43.2).
[3] A site on the west coast of Messenia, which an Athenian force occupied in 425. The Spartans and their allies initially attempted to dislodge the Athenians with an amphibious landing, but were repulsed despite Brasidas' heroics (Thuc. 4.11f).
[4] Hagnon was the original Athenian founder of the strategic colony at Amphipolis in 437 (Thuc. 4.102). Brasidas captured the town from the Athenians in 424 (Thuc. 4.103-7); cf. epsilon 2026.
[5] Brasidas and Kleon (kappa 1731), his counterpart for belligerence on the Athenian side, were both killed in the battle of Amphipolis in 422 (Thuc. 5.2f, 6-11), and the "Peace of Nicias" in the following year caused a temporary cessation of hostilities.
[6] After Archidamos II, king of Sparta, who led the first Spartan and allied invasion of Attica in 431. See alpha 4108.
[7] An approximation of Aristophanes, Peace 640, with comment from the scholia there.

This quotation is unidentifiable but, more importantly, the gloss on it is erroneous. Epidauros Limera, later Monemvasia, lay on the SE coast of Laconia (Peloponnese, Greece), far to the south of its better-known namesake Epidauros in the Argolid (epsilon 2278, epsilon 2279). Often the "Limera" suffix is used without explanation (e.g. Thucydides 4.58.2, 6.105.2; Pausanias 3.21.7, 3.23.6 & 10), but see Strabo 8.6.1 (web address 1): "Apollodorus observes that this city, because it has a good harbour [limen], was called limenera, which was abbreviated and contracted to limera, and its name changed". Modern scholarship accepts this (see LSJ s.v. limhro/s), so two senses of the word need to be distinguished: "well-harbored," as here, and "hunger-causing," as in lambda 547 (and lambda 548).

See generally under mu 434. For a specimen see pi 35.

OCD4 s.v. Methone(1). See also mu 896.
[1] For this gloss, interrupting the coherence of the item (which is otherwise from Harpocration s.v.), see alpha 1298.
[2] Demosthenes 1.9 (web address 1).
[3] Demetrius of Magnesia (C1 BCE) wrote a work called Cities of the Same Name. See generally OCD4 Demetrius(16).

See already mu 434. The present entry merely has the first vowel of the name as eta rather than epsilon (as in e.g. Homer, Iliad 2.716).

Mothone (and its cognates) is an authentic alternative for Methone, a fortress on the SW coast of Messenia in the Peloponnese (Greece). The o-version doubtless recommended itself as a way of avoiding confusion with the better-known city of Methone -- present-day Nevestiki -- in the NW Aegean (mu 433, mu 434).

[1] Likewise in Hesychius (mu1545), though it does not occur in literature.
[2] For mothos see mu 1186 -- but the present headword is is more plausibly derived from mo/qwn, "someone presumptuous" (cf. mu 1187).
[3] cf. mu 1189.

C4 AD. RE Palladios(1); PLRE I Palladius(1); FGrH 837.
[1] In northern Greece (mu 433, mu 434).