 The chariot of Aphrodite was drawn by a flock of doves, however.A mythic element of a black dove that initiated the oracle at Dodona, which Herodotus was told in the 5th century BC may be an attempt to account for a folk etymology applied to the archaic name of the sacred women that no longer made sense (an aitiological myth).Perhaps the "pel-" element in their name was originally connected with "black" or "muddy" root elements in names like Peleus or Pelops and peliganes (Epirotian, Macedonian senators), Attic "polios", Doric "peleios" grey, old, PIE *pel-, "gray".