Prince Meleager and his band of warriors crept towards the den of the terrifying beast they sought to slay. But unbeknownst to the prince and his followers, a dark secret loomed over his life...
The night of Meleager’s birth, his mother Althaea, the Queen of Calydon, was visited by three shadowy goddesses, known as the Fates. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos rarely appeared to mortals but wielded untold power over their lives. Clotho spun a thread at the birth of new life, Lachesis determined its length, and Atropos cut it with her shears, marking the moment of death.
When the Fates visited Althaea that night, they gestured towards the blazing hearth and decreed that Meleager would live only until the burning log was reduced to embers. Althaea rushed to quench the fire, but before she could beg for more information, the Fates had vanished. She locked the log in a chest and took comfort in guarding the key to her son’s safety, as he grew into a talented young man and a daring, hot-tempered warrior.
Meleager traveled far and accomplished impressive feats, until soon, a formidable opponent arrived at his doorstep. During that year's annual sacrifices, Meleager's father neglected to leave an offering to Artemis, goddess of the hunt. So, the gods sent their punishment in the form of a boar that tore through Calydon, hide bristling with razor-sharp hairs, spear-like tusks gleaming, and lightning leaping from its mouth. It had decimated the area’s fields, herds, and people.
Since there was no hope of defeating the boar alone, Althaea’s beloved brothers agreed to accompany their nephew on the hunt. Meleager hastily recruited Greece’s best warriors to join them, including Castor, revered for his horsemanship, as well as his brother, Pollux, a fearsome fist-fighter. Meleager also called on Acastus, who hurtled javelins with incomparable strength; Caeneus a hero with impenetrable skill; and Amphiaraus, a revered diviner. But perhaps most skilled of them all was Atalanta, the famed warrior of the Arcadian woods. Because her father wanted a male heir, he abandoned her in the wilderness. Suckled by a bear and raised by roaming hunters, Atalanta became a fierce wrestler, swift runner, and lethal hunter.
Though some of Meleager's men objected to fighting alongside a woman, he assured them of Atalanta’s strength, and led his small army into the ravaged countryside in search of the beastly boar. Althaea waved farewell anxiously, but reassured herself that her son could come to no grievous harm so long as she guarded the log the Fates had linked to his life.
Hunting hounds led the party towards the boar’s forest lair, where they cast large nets and lobbed weapons into the dark of the monster’s den. Suddenly charging from its cave, the boar flattened trees and hunters in its path, then sharpened its tusks on the fallen oak to gore more of its enemies.
Atalanta pinpointed a vulnerable spot behind the beast’s ears and let fly one perfectly aimed arrow. With the beast weakened, Amphiaraus lodged another arrow in its eye, leaving Meleager to deal the final blow.
Meleager praised Atalanta’s first, decisive hit, and awarded her the boar’s hide and head. But his uncles were outraged that he should bestow all the glory upon a woman, so they snatched her prize. Meleager’s temper flared back, and before his mind cleared, the consequence of a bitter battle lay before him: he had killed his uncles in his fit of rage.
Keeping watch at the palace, Althaea rejoiced at the hunters’ return, but the news of her brothers’ deaths at the hands of her son quickly transformed her relief into grief— and then unabated rage. Althaea tore from the crowd to her quarters. Ears ringing and hands shaking, her mind a frenzied blur of betrayal and resentment, Althaea fumbled for the hidden chest, shook its lock free, and pitched the log into the flames.
All at once, Meleager was engulfed by a strange agony that would haunt his last, fated moments— a destiny branded into his and his mother’s lives, though neither could have foreseen the wicked turn it would take.
