Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon, Mistress of the Wild
Apollo’s twin sister, silver bow and silver arrows, roaming the forests with a band of nymphs. At three years old she asked Zeus for a vow to remain forever unwed, and she is among the most dangerous goddesses on Olympus — a hunter who glimpsed her bathing was turned into a stag and torn apart by his own hounds.
The hunter Actaeon strayed onto a sacred spring and stumbled on the goddess bathing. Artemis flung water at him; he became a stag and was run down and torn apart by his own fifty hounds. On her ground, the price of insolence is never discounted.
Agamemnon shot her sacred deer and spoke arrogantly, so the goddess becalmed the Greek fleet in port. The oracle demanded the sacrifice of the commander’s eldest daughter, Iphigenia. In one version, at the instant the knife fell the goddess swapped the girl for a deer and carried her off to serve as her own priestess.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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