Deer in mythology stood in some sort of connexion to Odin's endowment of the dignity of kings." In Greek mythology, the deer is particularly associated with Artemis in her role as virginal huntress. Actaeon, after witnessing the nude figure of Artemis bathing in a pool, was transformed by Artemis into a stag that his own hounds tore to pieces. Callimachus, in his archly knowledgeable "Hymn III to Artemis", mentions the deer that drew the chariot of Artemis: One of the Labors of Heracles was to capture the Cerynian Hind sacred to Artemis and deliver it briefly to his patron, then rededicate it to
Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto is a 1634 painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It is now on show in the Salm-Salm princely collection in the Wasserburg Anholt in Anholt, Germany. It shows two episodes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", in both of which someone is punished by the goddess Diana for a sexual offence. On the left, Actaeon is punished for seeing the goddess naked by being turned into a stag and killed by his own hounds. On the right, Diana's other nymphs are tearing off