Meleager
3 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Meleager. All 3 are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
mel-e-a'jer, in Greek legend, the son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and Althea, his wife. When her child was born the three Fates appeared to Althea and foretold that his life should last no longer than the brand then burning on the hearth. Althea seized the brand, quenched the flame, and concealed the half consumed wood that she might thus preserve the life of her son. Meleager grew to be a brave and handsome youth. His father Oeneus offended Diana by omitting to pay her honor when he sacrificed to the gods. As a punishment, Diana sent an enormous wild boar to devastate the fields of Calydon. The crops were laid waste, the flocks and herds thrown into confusion, and many animals slain. The boar could not be routed by any ordinary means. At last Meleager called together the heroes of Greece determined to hunt the boar to the death. Theseus, Pirithous, Jason, Peleus, Nestor, and many others joined the hunt. Among them came Atalanta, the beautiful maiden devoted to Diana and the chase. The hunters pursued the boar to a marsh where he turned and attacked them. Several were slain. Jason touched the beast with his spear but failed to wound him. Nestor had to climb a tree to escape death. At last one of Atalanta's arrows inflicted a wound that drew blood, and Meleager, aroused to the highest pitch of daring, rushed forward and thrust his spear into the monster's side. Meleager was praised and honored by his comrades, but when he bestowed the head and hide of the boar upon Atalanta envy was excited. Meleager's uncles, Plexippus and Toxeus, snatched the trophy from the maiden's hands. Meleager, angered by this insult, slew his uncles. When Althea learned that her son had slain her brothers she was overcome with grief and horror. She ordered a fire to be prepared and, bringing forth the fatal brand she had so carefully hidden, she cast it upon the flames. Then, overcome by what she had done, she took her own life. Meleager, as the fire burned, felt its consuming force in his own body and breathed his last as the brand sank into ashes. His sisters mourned for him so inconsolably that Diana in pity changed them into birds.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A celebrated hero of antiquity who signalized himself in the Argonautic expedition, and especially by killing the Calydonian boar, a famous event in mythological history.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in classic fable, a chieftain of the Ætolian Calydon, son of Æneas and Altheæ.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The story told by Aiton's in 1910 is still the story told today: the firebrand, the boar, Atalanta's arrow, Althaea's revenge. Two small things have moved. Scholars now stress that the oldest version, Phoenix's speech in Iliad IX, knows nothing of the magic brand — there Meleager dies in war after his mother's curse, and the firebrand appears only in later poets such as Bacchylides and Ovid, whose Metamorphoses is plainly Aiton's source. And the Roman names these books used by habit have largely gone: modern retellings say Artemis, not Diana, and Oeneus rather than the "Æneas" that Collier's printed in error in 1921. Calydon itself, a name on a map when these entries were written, was excavated by Danish archaeologists from the 1920s, uncovering the sanctuary of Artemis Laphria and a monumental hero-shrine.
Written for this edition, 2026.