The Ceryneian Hind, also called Cerynitis, was an enormous hind sacred to Artemis, the chaste goddess of the hunt and moon. It had golden antlers like a stag and hooves of bronze or brass, and it was said that it could outrun an arrow in flight. The capture of the hind was one of The Twelve Labours of Heracles. Genera About 15 in 4 subfamilies. ... This article is about the Greek goddess. ... The Twelve Labours of Herakles (Hercules) are a series of stories connected by a continuous narrative, concerning a penance carried out by Herakles. ... Statue of Heracles In Greek mythology, Heracles, or Heraklês (glory of Hera, Ἡρακλῆς) was the demigod son of Zeus and Alcmene, the grand-daughter of Perseus and the wife of Amphitryon. ...

When Artemis was a child, she found five gigantic hinds grazing in Thessaly and captured four of them to draw her chariot. The fifth had escaped across a river to Mt. Cerynaea, on the border of Achaea and Arcadia. Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... Achaea (Greek: , Akhaïa) is a province on the northern coast of the Peloponnese, stretching from the mountain ranges of Erymanthus and Cyllene on the south to a narrow strip of fertile land on the north, bordering the Gulf of Corinth, into which the mountain Panachaicus (1,902 m, the... Arcadia or Arkadía (Greek Αρκαδία) is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. ...

The 3rd Labour of Heracles

Eurystheus was greatly angered to find that Heracles had managed to escape death on the previous two labours, and so decided to spend more time thinking up a third task that would spell doom for the hero. The third task did not involve killing a beast, as it had already been established that Heracles could survive even the most fearsome opponents, so Eurystheus decided to make him capture the remaining Cerynian Hind. Statue of Heracles In Greek mythology, Heracles, or Heraklês (glory of Hera, Ἡρακλῆς) was the demigod son of Zeus and Alcmene, the grand-daughter of Perseus and the wife of Amphitryon. ...

The hind was so fast it could outrun an arrow. When Heracles awoke from sleeping, he could see the hind from the glint on its antlers. Heracles chased the hind on foot for a full year through Greece, Thrace, Istria and the land of the Hyperboreans. In some versions, he captured the hind when it stopped to drink, rendering it lame by shooting it with an arrow that had not been poisoned with centaur/hydra blood, as most of his arrows were, in other versions he captured it when it was unable to run any further. Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe spread over southern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and European Turkey. ... Rovinj, on the western coast of Croatian Istria. ... In Greek mythology, according to tradition, the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived to the far north of Greece. ... Guido Reni, Abduction of Deianira, 1620-21 In Greek mythology, the centaurs (Greek: Κένταυροι) are a race part human and part horse, with a horses body and a human head and torso. ... The 16th-century German illustrator has been influenced by the Beast of Revelation in his depiction of Hydra. ...

Eurystheus had given Heracles this task hoping to incite Artemis' anger at Heracles for his desecration of her sacred animal. As he was returning with the hind, Heracles encountered Artemis and her twin, Apollo, and begged the goddess for forgiveness, explaining that he had to catch it as part of his penance, but he promised to return it. Artemis forgave him, foiling Eurystheus' plan to have her punish him. Eurystheus was a mythical king of Mycenae and grandson of the hero Perseus. ... For other uses, see Apollo (disambiguation). ...

Upon bringing the hind to Eurystheus, he was told that it was to become part of the King's menagerie. Heracles knew that he had to return the hind as he had promised to Artemis, so he agreed to hand it over on the condition that Eurystheus himself came out and took it from him. The King came out, but the moment Heracles let the hind go it sprinted back to her mistress, and Heracles left saying that Eurystheus had not been quick enough.

Origin of the myth

Doe bearing antlers were unknown in Greece, but the story of the hind is suggestive of reindeer, which, unlike other deer, can be harnessed and whose females bear antlers; so the myth's archaic origins may have been northern, Robert Graves thought. Binomial name Rangifer tarandus (Linnaeus, 1758) The reindeer, known as caribou in North America, is an Arctic-dwelling deer (Rangifer tarandus). ... Portrait of Robert Graves (circa 1974) by Rab Shiell Robert von Ranke Graves (July 24, 1895–December 7, 1985) was an English scholar, best remembered for his work as a poet and novelist. ...

When the sun is in the sign of Scorpio, the constellation Hercules rises. The Greeks referred to the constellation of Hercules as the Stag (hind is another word for stag), the identification of the constellation with Hercules was made by the Romans. Scorpius (♏, and Latin for scorpion) is one of the constellations of the zodiac. ... Hercules is the fifth largest of the 88 modern constellations. ... The heliacal rising of a star (or other body such as the moon or a planet) occurs when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn, after a period where it was hidden below the horizon or when it was just above the horizon but hidden by the...

Immediately next to the constellation Hercules, is the constellation Sagitta, the arrow, the owner of which varies amongst the various versions of each part of Greek mythology. Artemis (to whom the Cerynian Hind was said to have been sacred, causing her to draw an arrow at Herakles, just like the constellation Sagittarius appears to be doing), is a key player in the myth discussing the origin of Scorpio and death of Orion, and so has an association with this area of sky. The direction of the arrow also makes it appear that the constellation Hercules (the stag) is trying to outrun it. Sagitta, being Latin for Arrow, is the third-smallest of all constellations (only Equuleus and Crux are smaller). ... Sagittarius (♐, and Latin for Archer) is a constellation of the zodiac, commonly depicted as a centaur drawing a bow. ...

See also

• Deer in mythology.