Key Points

- Enormous horned female deer favored by Artemis

- Captured (or killed) by Heracles

Brief Bio

The Ceryneian Hind was a creature that lived in Ceryneia, Greece and took the form of an enormous female deer, larger than a bull, with golden antlers like a stag, hooves of bronze or brass, and a "dappled hide", that "excelled in swiftness of foot", and snorted fire. To bring it back alive to Eurystheus in Mycenae was the third labour of Heracles.

The Ceryneian hind was sacred to Artemis. "The hind is said to have borne the inscription 'Taygete dedicated (me) to Artemis'." Because of its sacredness, Heracles did not want to harm the hind and so hunted it for more than a year, from Oenoe to Hyperborea, to a mountain called Artemisius, (a range which divides Argolis from the plain of Mantinea) before finally capturing the hind near the river Ladon.