page_title: Deer in mythology
section_title: Greek
hierarchical_section_title: Deer in mythology / Greek
caption_attribution_description: English: Artemis with a hind, better known as "Diana of Versailles". Marble, Roman artwork, Imperial Era (1st-2nd centuries CE). Found in Italy. Français&#160;: Statue d'Artémis à la biche, dite Diane de Versailles, peut-être inspirée d'un original grec du IVe siècle av. J.-C. par Léocharès. Marbre, œuvre romaine d'époque impériale. Provenance&#160;: Italie. Son nom Diane de Versailles lui vient du fait que Louis XIV fait transférer la statue dans le château de Versailles, lieu qu'elle occupera jusqu'à son retour au Louvre en 1798.
context_page_description: Deer have significant roles in the mythology of various peoples located all over the world, such as object of worship, the incarnation of deities, the object of heroic quests and deeds, or as magical disguise or enchantment/curse for princesses and princes in many folk and fairy tales.
  The deer also symbolizes a connection to the supernatural, the Otherworld or to the fairy realm, e.g., being a messenger or an entity's familiar.
context_section_description: In Greek mythology, the deer is particularly associated with Artemis in her role as virginal huntress. Actaeon, after witnessing the nude figure of Artemis bathing in a pool, was transformed by Artemis into a stag that his own hounds tore to pieces. Callimachus, in his archly knowledgeable "Hymn III to Artemis", mentions the deer that drew the chariot of Artemis:
  in golden armor and belt, you yoked a golden chariot, bridled deer in gold.
  One of the Labors of Heracles was to capture the Cerynian Hind sacred to Artemis and deliver it briefly to his patron, then rededicate it to Artemis. As a hind bearing antlers was unknown in Greece, the story suggests a reindeer, which, unlike other deer, can be harnessed and whose females bear antlers. The myth relates to Hyperborea, a northern land that would be a natural habitat for reindeer. Heracles' son Telephus was exposed as an infant on the slopes of Tegea but nurtured by a doe.
caption: Diana of Versailles
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