Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Myths and Legends: Atalanta and the Boar

Atalanta and the Boar. To find out more about the Calydonian boar hunt, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

Today we have a medieval depiction of the ancient Greek heroine Atalanta, the famous huntress who set out with Mealeager and other great hunters in order to kill the Calydonian boar. Atalanta was the first to strike the boar; when it had been wounded, Meleager was able to move in for the kill. Meleager awarded the skin to Atalanta as a trophy, which outraged his uncles. Meleager then slew his uncles and his mother then brought about Meleager's own death by casting his life charm into the fire. You can read more about Atalanta and Meleager here at Wikipedia.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of October 21-27 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.