A Book of Myths, by Jean Lang - Umnet

The years sped on, and from fearless and beautiful babyhood, Meleager
grew into gallant boyhood, and then into magnificent youth. When
Jason and his heroes sailed away into a distant land to win the Golden
Fleece, Meleager was one of the noble band. From all men living he
won great praise for his brave deeds, and when the tribes of the north
and west made war upon Ætolia, he fought against their army and
scattered it as a wind in autumn drives the fallen leaves before it.
But his victory brought evil upon him. When his father OEneus, at the
end of a fruitful year, offered sacrifices to the gods, he omitted to
honour the goddess Diana by sacrificing to her, and to punish his
neglect, she had sent this destroying army. When Meleager was victor,
her wrath against his father grew yet more hot, and she sent a wild boar,
large as the bulls of Epirus, and fierce and savage to kill and to devour,
that it might ravage and lay waste the land of Calydon. The fields of
corn were trampled under foot, the vineyards laid waste, and the olive
groves wrecked as by a winter hurricane. Flocks and herds were
slaughtered by it, or driven hither and thither in wild panic, working
havoc as they fled. Many went out to slay it, but went only to find a
hideous death. Then did Meleager resolve that he would rid the land of
this monster, and called on all his friends, the heroes of Greece, to
come to his aid. Theseus and his friend Pirithous came; Jason; Peleus,
afterwards father of Achilles; Telamon, the father of Ajax; Nestor, then
but a youth; Castor and Pollux, and Toxeus and Plexippus, the brothers
of Althæa, the fair queen-mother. But there came none more fearless
nor more ready to fight the monster boar of Calydon than Atalanta, the
daughter of the king of Arcadia. When Atalanta was born, her father
heard of her birth with anger. He desired no daughter, but only sturdy
sons who might fight for him, and in the furious rage of bitter
disappointment he had the baby princess left on the Parthenian Hill that
she might perish there. A she-bear heard the baby's piteous cries, and
carried it off to its lair, where she suckled it along with her young, and
there the little Atalanta tumbled about and played with her furry
companions and grew strong and vigorous as any other wild young
creature of the forest.
Some hunters came one day to raid the den and kill the foster-mother,