ARTEMIS

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ARTEMIS

Artemis is the Greek goddess of the moon.

In the Greek tradition, Artemis is the hunter goddess of the moon. In the Latin tradition, her name is Diana. 

Artemis is the twin sister of the sun god, Apollo, and the daughter of the great father Zeus and the goddess Leto. When Hera, Zeus' wife, discovered that Leto was pregnant, she forbade any land to harbor her. The island of Delos defied Hera, allowing Leto to birth the twins there.

Artemis is associated with the "virgin" figure of the Triple Goddess (virgin, matron, crone) and is the beautiful, wild thing which men pursue but cannot tame. Legend has it that a hunter Actaeon, boasted he was a better hunter than Artemis. She turned him into a stag which was hunted down by her own dogs. Artemis did fall in love with the hunter, Orion, but when he was stung by a scorpion, Artemis hung him in the night stars. 

When Artemis was young, she asked her father, Zeus, for to grant her six wishes; to always be young, to always be chaste and never have to marry, to have a pack of lop-eared dogs, to have virgins and nymphs as companions, to have stags to pull her chariot, and to have a silver bow and arrows.