From Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend, by Professor H. Steuding, Translated from the German and edited by Lionel D. Barnett. The Temple Primers, London: J. M. Dent; 1901; pp. 91-92.
[91]Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend
GREEK MYTHOLOGY
Heroic Poetry
VII. Meleagros and the Hunt of Kalydon. § 159. Meleagros, a mighty hunter, was son of Oineus of Kalydon and Althaia. he and many comrades destroyed a terrible boar sent by Artemis which laid waste the fields. When however he slew a brother of his mother in a conflict arising from claims for the prize of victory, Althaia prayed the infernal gods to avenge the deed of bloodshed on her son, and soon after he fell in battle. Poetry after Homer, borrowing an idea from the old custom of extinguished lights in cursing, adds that the Moirai had announced to his mother that he 92 should live only so long as a brand smouldering on the hearth should be unconsumed by the fire; thereupon she quickly extinguished it and preserved it, but on the slaughter of her brother burned it, and thus brought about the death of her son.
§ 160. Atalante, the coy huntress of Arkadia and Boiotia, who is near akin to the huntress-goddess Artemis, was only later brought into connection with Meleagros. In his love he promised her the head of the boar as a trophy because she had first wounded the beast; in consequence he quarrelled with his uncle and came to his death in the manner above described. Atalante again would only have for husband the man who should conquer her in a race; the defeated competitors were slain. Meilanion (or Hippomenes, according to another legend) received from Aphrodite three golden apples which on her advice he threw down while Atalante was running. As she picked them up he meanwhile outdistanced her, and thus she became perforce his bride.
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Heroic Poetry :
VIII. The Argonauts.