Artemis and Orion Their love will always be printed amongst the stars

The Story of Artemis

Although only a secondary deity, Artemis/Diana is worshipped even today. She is popular in Paganism and Wicca, particular amongst the Dianic Wiccans. She is also seen as a feminist figure.

In Greek mythology Artemis is the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. In Roman mythology, she was known as Diana. She was the virgin moon goddess of the hunt, wild animals, healing, wilderness, chastity, and paradoxically childbirth (she was worshipped as a fertility/childbirth goddess mostly in cities), since she assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin. She was often depicted with the crescent of the moon above her forehead and was sometimes identified with Selene (goddess of the moon). Her main vocation was to roam mountain forests and uncultivated land with her nymphs in attendance hunting for lions, panthers, hinds and stags. Contradictory to the later, she helped in protecting and seeing to their well-being, also their safety and reproduction. She was armed with a bow and arrows which were made by Hephaestus and the Cyclopes.

When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Hera's husband, Zeus, was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on terra firma, or the mainland, or any island at sea. Leto found the floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island and gave birth there. The island was surrounded by swans. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was secured with four pillars. The island later became sacred to Apollo. Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo. Another version states that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo.

This was the beginning of her role as guardian of young children and patron of women in childbirth. Being a goddess of contradictions, she was the protectress of women in labor, but it was said that the arrows of Artemis brought them sudden death while giving birth.

At three years old, Artemis asked her father, Zeus, while sitting on the god king's knee, to grant her several wishes. She asked for grant her perpetual virginity, lop-eared hounds, does to lead her chariot, and nymphs as her hunting companions. He granted her wishes. All of her companions remained virgins, and she guarded her chastity very closely

She was vengefully angry if her nymphs vowed loyalty but later had secret liaisons with a man. The most famous example is that of one of her nymphs, Callisto. Artemis was enraged when Callisto, allowed Zeus to seduce her, but the great god approached her in one of his guises; he came in the form of Artemis. Later on, Artemis asked Callisto why her belly was swollen.  Callisto answered that she was pregnant and why did she have to ask if she was the cause of the pregnancy.

Artemis showed no mercy and changed her into a bear. She then shot and killed her. She was sent up to the heavens, and became the constellation of the Great Bear (which is also known as the Plough). Zeus' wife Hera found out Zeus had cheated on her with Callisto. To avenge herself, Hera ordered the ocean to forever keep the constellations from water. That's why the constellations of "Big and Little Bear" never set below the horizon.

She was protective of purity of her nymphs and proved cruelly punitive of any man who attempted to dishonor her or her counterparts. If a man was caught spying on Artemis and her nymphs while they bathed, Artemis released her wild dogs, which would rip the person apart. When Acteon spied on her, she first changed him into a stag and then let her wolves hunt him down. However, it may be argued that Actaeon was less innocent than the patriarchal Greeks made him out to be and that Artemis was defending herself and her nymphs. A Cretan, Siproites, once saw Artemis bathing nude and was changed by her into a woman

Artemis was very possessive. She would show her wrath on anyone who disobeyed her wishes, especially against her sacred animals. Even the great hero Agamemnon came upon the wrath of Artemis, when he killed a stag in her sacred grove. His punishment came when his ships were becalmed, while he made his way to besiege Troy. With no winds to sail his ships he was told by the seer Calchas that the only way Artemis would bring back the winds was for him to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. Some versions say he did sacrifice Iphigenia, others that Artemis exchanged a deer in her place, and took Iphigenia to the land of the Tauri (the Crimea) as a priestess, to prepare strangers for sacrifice to Artemis.

Artemis with her twin brother, Apollo, put to death the children of Niobe. The reason being that Niobe, a mere mortal, had boasted to Leto, the mother of the divine twins, that she had bore more children, which must make her superior to Leto. Apollo being outraged at such an insult on his mother, informed Artemis. The twin gods hunted them down and shot them with their bows and arrows; Apollo killed the male children and Artemis the girls.

That’s the main story of Artemis but what about Orion? How does he fit into this life of a seemingly vengeful goddess who supposedly loathed men?

You can now read about Orion or go straight to the theories of Orion’s death.