Atalanta's parents were the king and queen of Arcadia, but that didn't mean she was your typical girly-girl princess.

See, her father, the king, was a MASSIVE idiot. So, as soon as he saw that his newborn baby was a girl, he took her outside the city gates and left her on a rock in the wilderness to starve to death.

Why? What was Atalanta's crime?

Her very being a girl was enough for her own father to disown her. Just because she had two X-chromosomes, he left her in the woods to die.

Back then, the only important thing was to have a son, a male heir. To carry on the family's legacy, to inherit whatever his father left behind, etc. Apparently, those crazy-minded Greeks didn't understand why a girl couldn't do those things. A girl was only useful to marry off, but I guess the Arcadian king wasn't open to that option.

The story might've ended before it even started, but Artemis, the goddess of the Hunt and the protector of young girls noticed the baby that had been abandoned by her father. She sent a mother bear to raise the little princess as her own.

Atalanta lived for a few years in the woods. Life was pretty good for her. She drank bear's milk and ate wild honey. She romped with her siblings, the bear's cubs.

All until one day, when a few hunters from a nearby town came into the forest, hoping to kill some bear or deer or whatever they hunted back in Ancient Greece. When they entered the bear den, all they found was the child Atalanta. She put up a fierce fight, but they managed to take her back to civilization.

Don't ask where Mama Bear was during all this. I don't know.

Atalanta grew up to be a strong and swift woman. She beat King Peleus in a wrestling match. Mind you, Peleus was Achilles's father. She also shot a few centaurs in the face once. They deserved it.

Sometime around this, the king of Calydon managed to seriously piss off the goddess Artemis. He forgot to leave her an offering from the harvest. Idiot.

So, Artemis sent a terrifying pig to rampage the kingdom. The king freaked and called for all the best hunters in Greece to join his son, Meleager, in killing the pig. Atalanta showed up, and the big dude hunters (at first) refused to hunt with her, because she was a girl.

To settle the dispute and make sure he could hold his hunting party together, Meleager promised the boar's skin to the first who drew blood from the beast. They agreed, and off they went into the sunset to find a big pig.

When they encountered the boar, one guy chucked a spear at it. The spear promptly lost its tip. Another got his crotch rammed in by the pig's tusks. Atalanta jumped onto the boar's back and stabbed it, while Meleager slid underneath and killed it with a stab to the heart. Since Atalanta drew first blood, she received the boar's skin as a prize.

All was well, huh?

Well, nope.

After the hunt, two uncles of Meleager's started pushing Atalanta around and making fun of her, hoping that she would get fed up and leave so they can take the skin instead. She didn't, but the uncles did manage to piss off Meleager, who drew his sword and killed both of them.

A messenger ran off to Meleager's mom, the queen, and told her that her two brothers had been murdered by her son. The queen threw a magic stick into the fireplace, and Meleager burned up with it. The Fates has decreed that Meleager's life force was tied to the stick, and if it burned up, he died.

After all those shenanigans, the Arcadian King, Atalanta's real dad, decided to reclaim her and make her get married. Atalanta had dedicated herself to Artemis, a virgin goddess, so she wasn't too happy about that. An Oracle had told Atalanta that she would end up married one way or another, so she decided to set her own terms. All the suitors had to do to win her hand was beat her in a foot race. But, if they lost, they would be killed.

Most of the suitors backed off after the threat of murder, but the remaining ones raced her and all died, because, mind you, Atalanta was raised by freaking bears and could run like a gazelle.

One day, a young man named Hippomenes (there are a lot of Hippo- names in Greek mythology) came into town to race for Atalanta's hand in marriage.

Hippomenes was able to talk to Atalanta the day before the race, and he was so sweet and charming that Atalanta wasn't all that stoked to murder him the next day. She tried to dissuade him from racing her, but he was insistent.

Later that day, Hippomenes stopped by Aphrodite's temple. He asked the goddess for help in the race. She gave him three golden apples that were irresistible, just like love.

Soon it was time to Hippomenes to race Atalanta. Hippomenes started off in the lead, but as soon as Atalanta caught up to him and was about to overtake him, he rolled a golden apple in her path, to the side. Atalanta ran off course to quickly scoop it up, and by then Hippomenes was out of her reach. That again changed, because Hippomenes wasn't the greatest runner. He rolled another golden apple in her path, and Atalanta once again stopped to grab it. He rolled his final apple, and no matter how much Atalanta knew she shouldn't, she couldn't resist the urge to go retrieve it. So she did, and by that time, Hippomenes had crossed the finish line and won her hand in marriage.

They were married for a few years until
Zeus turned them both into lion because they, uh, got naughty in Zeus's temple. Only Zeus is able to do that in his temple.

Really, the whole thing makes Zeus look like even more of an idiot, because the belief was that lions could only mate with leopards, so Atalanta and Hippomenes couldn't be together anymore.

Way to go, Zeus.