This is another heroic adventure in which many heroes from all over the Greek world participate.  It is a group legend, like Jason and the Argonauts or the Trojan War expedition.  Meleagar was from a part of Greece called Calydon and he was the son of King Oeneus and Queen Althaea.  Some versions of the story make him the son of Althaea and the god Ares.

    As in many stories of heroes, Meleagar had a miraculous or strange birth story.  When he was an  infant, his mother Althaea, received an oracle that her young son would die when the log that was in the fireplace burned completely.  She quickly pulled the log from the fireplace and locked it in a chest which she kept in her bedroom.

    When Meleagar grew up, his kingdom was attacked and ravaged by a huge wild boar and he organized an expedition to kill this dangerous animal.  (The boar had been sent by Artemis to punish Oeneus for making a sacrifice to the gods which did not include her.) Participants on this expedition overlap quite a bit with the Argonauts:  Castor and Pollux, Heracles, Theseus, Jason, various fathers of Trojan war heroes such as Telamon (Ajax), Peleus (Achilles), Laertes (Odysseus), etc.  Nestor, and Atalanta (with whom Meleagar was falling in love).

    The hunt was long and difficult but the animal was finally brought down by a combination of spear thrusts from a large number of hunters.  Because so many participated in the kill, Meleagar was asked to decide who should receive the boar's head trophy.  He chose Atalanta probably because of his personal attachment to her.  The other hunters grumbled but most angry were Meleagar's uncles, Althaea's brothers, who had joined the hunt.  Meleagar fought with them and killed them both.

    This brings us back to the log in the trunk.  When Althaea heard of the death of her brothers she was very angry herself, and in a moment of uncontrolled fury (ate) she pulled the log from the trunk and threw it into the fireplace.  As soon as it was consumed, Meleagar died, but not before entrusting the care of his sister Dejanira to his friend Heracles.  This is how Heracles meets Dejanira and she becomes his second wife.