Artemis we hymn — no light thing is it for singers to forget her — whose study is the bow and the shooting of hares and the spacious dance and sport upon the mountains; beginning with the time when sitting on her father’s knees — still a little maid — she spake these words to her sire: “Give me to keep my maidenhood, Father, forever: and give me to be of many names, that Phoebus may not vie with me. And give me arrows and a bow — stay, Father, I ask thee not for quiver or for mighty bow: for me the Cyclopes will straightway fashion arrows and fashion for me a well-bent bow. But give me to be Bringer of Light and give me to gird me in a tunic…

…And give to me all mountains; and for city, assign me any, even whatsoever thou wilt: for seldom is it that Artemis goes down to the town…

So spake the child and would have touched her father’s beard, but many a hand did she reach forth in vain, that she might touch it. And her father smiled and bowed assent.

(Callimachus, Hymn III, To Artemis, 1-27)