Ceryneian Hind
The Ceryneian Hind was a deer of extraordinary speed with golden horns and bronze hooves, sacred to Artemis and never meant to be killed or wounded. Eurystheus set capturing it alive as Heracles's third labor precisely because that made it far harder than an ordinary hunt. Heracles pursued the hind for a full year before finally exhausting it near the river Ladon and carrying it living to Mycenae.
Ceryneian Hind, the golden-horned deer of Artemis
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Core Myth
Apollodorus records the third labor as a deliberately impossible-seeming task: Eurystheus ordered Heracles to bring back alive the hind of Ceryneia, an animal with horns of gold and hooves of bronze that ranged from Oenoe and was sacred to Artemis. Because the hind belonged to the goddess, Heracles could not simply run it down and kill it the way he had the Nemean Lion; wounding or killing her sacred animal risked Artemis's own anger, so the entire difficulty of the labor lay in catching something that fast without harming it. Heracles pursued the hind for a full year across the Peloponnese, following it from mountain to mountain until it finally fled, exhausted, toward the river Ladon. As it was about to cross the stream, he closed the distance and caught it, then carried the animal on his shoulders back through Arcadia toward Mycenae. On the way, Artemis and Apollo confronted him, accusing him of trying to harm the goddess's own sacred hind. Heracles defended himself by explaining that Eurystheus, not he, had ordered the labor, and that only necessity had driven him to touch the animal at all. Satisfied by his explanation and by the blame he placed on Eurystheus rather than on any wish to defy her, Artemis let him carry the hind on to Mycenae alive, where the labor was completed.
Why did Heracles have to capture the hind alive rather than kill it?
The hind was sacred to Artemis, and harming her animal risked the goddess's own anger. Eurystheus set the labor as a live capture specifically because avoiding all injury to something so fast made it a far harder task than an ordinary hunt would have been.
Apollodorus, Library 2.5.3
How long did Heracles chase the hind before finally catching it?
A full year. Apollodorus says the hind's speed made a direct chase useless, so Heracles simply followed it across the Peloponnese, mountain after mountain, until exhaustion finally slowed it enough to be caught near the river Ladon as it tried to cross.
Apollodorus, Library 2.5.3
Where did Heracles actually catch the hind - Arcadia or the far north?
Sources disagree. Apollodorus places the capture at the river Ladon in Arcadia after the exhausted hind fled there. Pindar's Olympian Ode 3 instead sets the whole pursuit in the land of the Hyperboreans, far to the north, and links that same chase to Heracles's discovery of the olive tree he later planted at Olympia.
Pindar, Olympian Ode 3.13-34
What happened when Artemis and Apollo confronted Heracles over the hind?
The two gods met him as he carried the hind through Arcadia and accused him of harming Artemis's sacred animal. Heracles explained that Eurystheus had ordered the labor and placed the blame there, an answer that satisfied Artemis enough to let him carry the hind on to Mycenae alive.
Apollodorus, Library 2.5.3
Did Heracles really bring the hind back alive, or does every source agree on that?
No, they do not agree. Apollodorus is explicit that the hind reached Mycenae alive, matching the labor's whole point. Euripides's Heracles instead has its chorus recall that Heracles killed the golden-horned deer of Oenoe outright, a direct contradiction that the corpus preserves rather than resolves.
Euripides, Heracles 375-379
Were the hind's golden horns unusual for a female deer?
Yes. Among real deer, only males typically grow antlers, so a hind carrying golden horns marked the animal immediately as more than an ordinary wild creature - a visible sign of Artemis's protection rather than a natural trait any hunter would expect to meet.
Later Traditions
Pindar's Olympian Ode 3 tells a strikingly different geography for the same chase: rather than Arcadia and the river Ladon, Heracles pursues the golden-horned hind north to the land of the Hyperboreans, and it is there, admiring the shade trees of that distant country, that he resolves to bring an olive branch back to plant at Olympia, tying the third labor directly to the founding of the olive crown awarded at the games. A separate and sharper disagreement survives in Euripides: where Apollodorus insists the hind was carried back alive, the chorus of Euripides's Heracles recalls instead that Heracles "slew that dappled deer with horns of gold, that preyed upon the country-folk" near Oenoe - the same place-name Apollodorus uses, but a flatly opposite ending.
Also Connected
3 recorded connections, each with the ancient line behind it.
Connected
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Apollo confronted Heracles alongside his sister Artemis when he found him carrying her sacred hind through Arcadia.
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The hind was sacred to Artemis, which is why Heracles was ordered to capture it alive rather than kill it.
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Capturing the hind alive was the third of Heracles's twelve labors, a year-long pursuit rather than a fight.
Where Accounts Differ
- location of the hind's capture
- did Heracles kill the hind or capture it alive
- Location variant: Apollodorus places the capture at the river Ladon in Arcadia; Pindar's Olympian Ode 3 places the whole chase in the land of the Hyperboreans, tied to the origin of the Olympic olive crown.
- Outcome variant: Apollodorus says Heracles brought the hind to Mycenae alive; Euripides's Heracles has its chorus recall that he killed it.
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Mythology
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Sources
- Apollodorus, Library 2.5.3
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 3.13-34
- Euripides, Heracles 375-379
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)