Dreamtime (book) to the nocturnal visionary traditions associated with the goddess Diana in that region. Duerr then looks into the origins of the nocturnal visionary traditions, beginning with the ancient Greek deity Artemis and her influence on the Roman goddess Diana. In Alpine lore, Diana survived Christianization as the leader of the nocturnal procession. Duerr goes further back into the Palaeolithic, where Venus figurines are interpreted as a "prototype" for the later Greek Artemis, a goddess who was "the unrestrained mistress of animals and plants". Duerr then describes the relationship between ancient goddesses and caves as a symbol of the female vagina
Artemis Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth. The "Iliad" reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus. A poem by Callimachus to the goddess "who amuses herself on mountains with archery" imagines some charming vignettes. Artemis, while sitting on the knee of her father, Zeus, asked him to grant her several wishes: Artemis believed that she had been chosen by the Fates to be a midwife, particularly since she had assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin brother, Apollo.