The Story Of Artemis

     Artemis, sometimes referred to by the Roman name Diana, is the Greek goddess of hunting, and Apollo's beautiful twin sister. She is also the goddess of the moon, and protector of animals and young unmarried girls. Artemis scorns the idea of marriage, yet she watches over women when their children are born. Artemis is also a goddess of healing. She taught Apollo the arts of medicine and archery.

     She is a goddess of the chase, and is often represented as a huntress, with dogs and a boar's head at her side. She is also represented as the goddess of the moon, wearing a long white robe, a white veil, and gliding through the sky in her silvery chariot. She loves to hunt, fish, and swim in moonlit mountain pools. If a mortal sees her bathing without clothes on, however, she likes to change him into a stag and hunt him down, sometimes turning his own dogs on him, as happened to Actaeon. Her emblem is the she-bear, the most dangerous of all wild animals in Greece .

     Artemis is the daughter of Zeus, sovereign of Greek gods, and Leto, goddess of darkness. Her twin brother Apollo is the god of the sun. She is protected by Hecate, queen of witches, and she learned to roam fearlessly and understand wild creatures. Artemis and Apollo went to Mount Olympus to take their places among the high gods when they were full-grown.

     Artemis the protectress. Artemis tries to protect her friends, family, and of course, fellow Athenians, from all evil. It doesn't matter whether it's a broken heart or a broken link - she'll be there to help you out.  Artemis, loves animals.  There's also the  hilarious image of Artemis hunting down a Peeping Tom. Her duality of kindness and ferocity when harmed . She can be the sweetest, nicest person you'll ever meet. But, if you harm her or her loved ones, watch out.

     Even though she is represented as the patron of unyielding maidenhood, she once truly fell in love with a mortal named Endymion. He was a young shepherd who tended his sheep on Mount Latmos ' slopes. Late one night he fell asleep under an oak tree, and Artemis fell deeply in love with him the first time she saw him. She would have awakened him to tell him of her love, but she did not dare to, since she had often boasted that she would never marry, and was herself immune to the weakness of admiring mortals. Instead, she stole quietly from her chariot and kissed him gently, being careful not to awaken him. She also cast wonderful dreams, often with the lovely figure of the moon goddess in the center of them. She passed this way for many nights, until the other gods began to notice her absence from the sky. Soon, the gods discovered her secret and many of the gods would have mocked her if Zeus had not stopped them. He feared that she would stop performing her duties as the goddess of the moon because of Endymion. Therefore, he forced the youth to make a choice: a death in any manner he chooses, or perpetual youth through perpetual sleep. He chose to sleep, and Artemis still sees him when she reaches a certain point in the sky, sleeping peacefully in a cave on Mount Latmos .

     Once, Apollo showed his sister a black spot far out in the ocean which he knew to be the mortal Orion, an eager hunter who went with Artemis on some of her hunts. Often Apollo had scolded her for her attentions to Orion, but it was no use. He dared Artemis to hit the black spot in the ocean, so she took careful aim and shot. When she discovered she had killed Orion, she turned him into a constellation.

               Artemis is one of the great Greek gods on Mount Olympus . While the Greek deities are no longer worshipped today, they are still interesting to study and learn about.

 

The Story of Methos

     He is a Watcher, and also an Immortal. The only known Immortal to ever infiltrate the Secret Organization. Fact is, only a hand full of Immortals, from the beginning of known history, know that the Watchers ever existed.

     Methos is said to be the "Oldest living Immortal." This distinction has not yet been disputed. Methos, thru to the present. His birth pre-dates recorded history. Methos, himself, is not even sure exactly how old he is, but says that his memory goes back at least 5000 years.

     In his over 5 millennia on planet Earth, he has worn many guises. During the first millennia or so, he was a Demonic God, killing for pleasure, taking anything that he wanted, inciting terror in the hearts and minds of everyone that was unlucky enough to cross his path. He has not said what hellish trauma or tragic upbringing started him on this road, but he does say that the Road was paved with death and destruction. In the bronze age (sometime between 3000 B.C. and 1800 B.C.) he was one of the infamous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Horsemen were made up of Immortals (Methos, Kronos, Cylus & Caspian), which didn't leave any hope for mortals that they came across. They were merciless Gods, and no mere mortal could stand in their way. With the knowledge of Immortality, weapons in hand, and a strong mount beneath them, the world was their personal playground, and no-one could stop them.

     Well, somewhere along the way, Methos changed his entire way of thinking. Maybe it was the unwilling love he felt for Cassandra (an Immortal he took captive after slaughtering her people), or he could have developed a conscience, or maybe it came to him from a higher power. Whatever happened to change him, he began to look at the world in a new light. His life of Conquest, Death and Tyranny changed to Knowledge and Philosophy.

     Throughout the next 3 or 4 thousand years, Methos has educated himself. He has thrown on a Mortal mask, and merge with our world. He has learned our ways of living and our ideas of civilization, or what we envision it to be and what we strive to make it. He's enlightened himself to the Mortal plight of survival, and has, in his many years, become sympathetic and understanding.

     With this examination and exploration of the Mortal (and with that, Immortal) condition, in the deepest reaches of his heart, he has truly become good.

     If there is hope for the tangled mass of Carnage that was Methos in his youth, there may be a chance for the redemption from a crippled Humanity that we, mere Mortals, find ourselves in.