The Ceryneian hind was the enormous hind of Ceryneia, described as larger than a bull, with golden antlers like a stag, hooves of bronze or brass, and a dappled hide. She excelled in swiftness of foot and was said to snort fire.

She was known by many names and descriptions: doe with the golden horns, golden-horned hind, Ceryneia hind, Cerynitian hind, beast with golden antlers, Parrhasian hind, the nimble hind of Maenalus, and the beast of Maenalus.

The Ceryneian hind was sacred to Artemis. One tradition holds that the hind is said to have borne the inscription, 'Taygete dedicated [me] to Artemis.'

In another tradition, Artemis once found a mighty herd of five Ceryneian hinds playing at the base of the Parrhasian hill, far from the banks of the black-pebbled Anaurus where they usually herded. So impressed was the goddess that she yoked four of them to her golden chariot with golden bridles, but at the suggestion of Hera let one escape to the Ceryneian hill — to become a future labour for Heracles. While in Ceryneia, the hind chased farmers from their vineyards.

Bringing the hind back alive to Eurystheus in Mycenae constituted the third labour of Heracles. Because of the creature's sacredness, Heracles did not want to harm her, and so hunted her for more than a year — from Oenoe to Hyperborea, to the mountain called Artemisius (the range dividing Argolis from the plain of Mantinea) — before finally capturing her near the river Ladon.

Accounts of the capture differ. Euripides says Heracles slew the hind and brought her to Artemis for propitiation. Another tradition says he captured her with nets while she was sleeping, or that he simply ran her down; yet another says he shot and maimed her with an arrow just before she crossed the river Ladon.

Once Heracles had captured the hind, Artemis and Apollo confronted him and would have wrested her away. Only after explaining that he had harmed the sacred animal solely out of necessity was he allowed to carry her alive to Eurystheus in Mycenae, thus completing his third labour.

The capture of the hind is a frequent subject in ancient and later art, often showing Heracles in struggle with Apollo (and sometimes Athena and Artemis) over the creature. Surviving depictions include an Athenian plate of about 560 BC showing Heracles and Apollo fighting over the hind, and a black-figure amphora of about 540–530 BC in which Heracles breaks off the golden antler in the presence of Athena and Artemis.

Other representations include a Corinthian helmet of the early 5th century BC depicting Heracles and Apollo struggling over the hind, a Roman bronze of the 1st century BC (thought to copy a work of Lysippus), further Roman-era bronzes of the 1st–2nd centuries AD, and a 3rd-century AD mosaic from Roman Spain illustrating the labours of Heracles. A modern statuette by J. M. Félix Magdalena, titled 'Heracles captura la cierva de Cerinia,' continues the theme.

The creature's sex and species have been debated, since she is described as a female deer yet bears antlers like a stag. The theory of Sir William Ridgeway argued that the hind was a reindeer, this being the only species of deer in which the female bears antlers. The article counters that it is castrated male reindeer, not females, that serve as draft animals, making a female reindeer an unlikely source for the myth.

More recent scholarship notes that female deer bearing antlers were in fact known in Europe and ancient Greece, occurring naturally in females that experience unusual levels of testosterone. Visual evidence for antlered females, often connected with Artemis, appears in Greek imagery from the Bronze Age onward and into the Byzantine period.

Reflecting this ambiguity, translations of the primary sources describe the creature variously as a doe, hind, deer, hart, stag, and beast.