thumb|Heracles breaking off the golden antler of the Ceryneian Hind, while Athena (left) and Artemis look on ([[black-figure amphora, ca. 540–30 BC)]]
In Greek mythology, the Ceryneian hind ( Kerynitis elaphos, Latin: Elaphus Cerynitis), was the enormous hind of Ceryneia, larger than a bull, with golden antlers like a stag, hooves of bronze or brass, and a "dappled hide", that "excelled in swiftness of foot", and snorted fire. golden-horned hind, Parrhasian hind, nimble hind of Maenalus and beast of Maenalus. Frazer says that the hind took her name from the river Cerynites, "which rises in Arcadia and flows through Achaia into the sea".
A European female deer bearing antlers, moreover, was not unknown in Greece. Recent scholarship documents this phenomenon both in real life and in Greek culture (with images). Although rare, female deer who experience unusual levels of testosterone, whether in utero or as a result of an injury or illness, can grow antlers. In literature such deer are usually connected in some way with Artemis, e.g. Callimachus' Hymn to Artemis lines 98-106. Further, from the Greek Bronze Age on down, there is visual evidence for female deer bearing antlers, a motif that continues into the Byzantine era, as on a relief sculpture in the Ravenna Archaeological Museum (illustrated at D-DAI-ROM 58.913).
Translations of relevant primary sources describe the creature as a doe, deer, and beast.