The Golden Fleece

(Chinaculture.org) Updated: 2015-01-30 13:30

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King Athamus of northern Greece had two children, Phrixus and HelleAfter he left his first wife and married a wicked woman named Ino, the two children received all the cruel treatment that a stepmother could devise. At one time the kingdom was ruined by a famine and Ino persuaded her gullible (Note: I think the context of this word is better here) husband into believing that his son, Phrixus, was the actual cause of the disaster, and should be sacrificed to Zeus to end it. The poor boy was then placed on the altar and was about to be knifed when a ram with golden fleece was sent down by the gods and carried off the two children on its back.

As they flew over the strait that divides Asia from Europe, Helle, faint at the sight of the vast expanse of water below, fell into the sea and was drowned. Therefore, the Sea of Helle became the ancient name of the strip of water. Her brother kept on and arrived in Colchis on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. There he sacrificed the ram to Zeus and gave its golden fleece to King Aeetes, who nailed it on a sacred tree and put a sleepless dragon in charge.