Taÿgete

One of the Pleiades; a daughter of Atlas and Pleïone.

Taÿgete sought protection from the goddess Artemis. Artemis tried to hide Taÿgete by turning her into a doe with golden horns, but Zeus wasn't fooled by the disguise. Zeus ravished her while he was in the form of a stag.

Taÿgete was the mother of Lacedaemon, the founder and king of Sparta. In honour of his mother, Lacedaemon named the mountain near Sparta as Mount Taÿgetus. She also had a daughter named Eurydice, who married Acrisius, king of Argos. Eurydice was the mother of Danaë and grandmother of the hero Perseus.

It was said that Taÿgete, in appreciation for Artemis' help, offered the hind to the goddess. This hind was the Cerynitian Hind, which Heracles hunted in his third labour.

According to the Olympian Ode III, Pindar said that the doe with the golden horn was actually the Cerynitian Hind. Heracles followed the track of the doe all the way to the north in the land of the Hyperboreans, where he found a grove of olive trees. Heracles liked the trees so much that he brought the trees back to Greece and planted them around the race track at Olympia.