Run with me, before me, or behind.
Mistress of the hunt, and of the wild.
I protect the young, in both children and animals.
I love the maids, in those young virgins.
I enjoy the chase, in hunting, in the wild.
Maiden of the moon, and of nature.
I am modest, I am chaste.
I demand the same, from those who walk with me.
And I will not be denied.
Artemis, the gallant goddess of the hunt, and the wild, the moon, and chastity.
The Torchbringer, the maiden of the wild, the mistress of animals.
Known by the Romans with the name Diana,
Artemis was the daughter of the king god, Zeus, and the titan, Leto,
and the twin sister of the sun god, Apollo.
As punishment for laying with her husband, Hera, the unforgiving queen of the gods,
had furiously chased the pregnant Leto throughout the earth,
commanding the lions to reject her, so she would not give birth anywhere on solid land.
With the help of the sea god, Poseidon, Leto found the floating island of Delos,
where she gave birth to Artemis, on the branch of an olive tree.
When Hera learned of this, she compelled her daughter, Illithia, goddess of childbirth,
to withhold the birth of Leto's second child.
However, Artemis grew up in no time, and helped her mother deliver her twin brother,
thereby thwarting Hera's plans.
Artemis was a youthful, beautiful and energetic huntress,
always wielding a bow and a quiver with arrows,
and often clad in either a short knee-high tunic or a long robe with a crescent crown.
She was also often accompanied by a deer, a wolf, or hunting dogs.
When Artemis was younger, and asked by her father, Zeus, what gifts she wished,
the goddess replied she wanted to keep her maidenhood for eternity,
to be free from love, and to be able to live her life as she pleased.
And so it was, Artemis spent her time in the wild.
She enjoyed leaping over the moon, going hunting, and wandering in the woods,
in the company of a group of nymphs, who had also taken the oath to remain chaste.
Artemis guarded her chastity ferociously,
and in the same vein, she defended the chastity of her followers.
Thus, she was utterly merciless, if any one of her priestesses dared to lose their innocence.
An instance was Callisto, whom the goddess cast from her presence,
and consented to Hera turning the defiled nymph to a bear,
because she broke her vow, and became pregnant for Zeus.
