The Hind of Ceryneia.
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Diana’s
Pet Deer. For the third labor, Eurystheus ordered Hercules to
bring him the Hind of Ceryneia.
Now, before we go any further, we’ll have to answer two
questions: What is a hind? and, Where is
Ceryneia? Ceryneia is a town in Greece, about fifty miles from
Eurystheus’ palace in Mycenae. A
hind is simply a female red deer. You’d think it would have
been easy for a hero like Hercules to go
shoot a deer and bring it back to Eurystheus, but a few
problems made things complicated. This
was a special deer, because it had golden horns and hoofs of
bronze. Not only that, the deer was
sacred to the goddess of hunting and the moon, Diana; she
was Diana’s special pet. That meant that
Hercules could neither kill the deer nor hurt her. He couldn’t
risk getting Diana angry at him; he was
already in enough trouble with Hera. Hercules set out on this
adventure, and he hunted the deer for
a whole year. At last, when the deer had become weary with
the chase, she looked for a place to
rest on a mountain called Artemisius, and then made her way
to the river Ladon. Realizing that the
deer was about to get away, Hercules shot her just as she
was about to cross the stream. He caught
the deer, put her on his shoulders and turned back to
Mycenae. As Hercules hurried on his way, he
was met by Diana and Apollo. Diana was very angry because
Hercules tried to kill her sacred
animal. She was about to take the deer away from Hercules,
and surely she would have punished
him, but Hercules told her the truth. He said that he had to
obey the oracle and do the labors
Eurystheus had given him. Diana let go of her anger and
healed the deer’s wound. Hercules carried
it alive to Mycenae.