Yet, at the last, Jason brought back the Golden Fleece to Thessaly, only to find that the false Pelias had slain Aeson and Jason's mother and brother during the absence of the Argonauts. His crime was not left unpunished. Medea persuaded the daughters of Pelias to cut their father into small pieces and to boil the fragments in a pot with certain witch-herbs that she gave them, falsely promising that by this means the old king would regain his youth. Of the later life of Jason and Medea, there is no need to speak. Misery was their lot, and their deaths were not long delayed.
Thus, in fanciful guise, appears in the old Greek legend the record of the European discovery of the alluvial gold deposits of Colchis, and to the Argonauts was ascribed the honor of being the first to bring to Greece the gold of Asia Minor. Even in those early days, the gift of gold was regarded as the favor of the gods.
[2] One book that should be in every boy's library is Charles Kingsley's "The Heroes," in which the "Quest of the Golden Fleece" is related with a beauty unequaled in the English language. The books of A. J. Church, also, especially his "Stories from Homer," make the old Greek demigods live once again.
There is good reason to believe that the Siege of Troy—the subject of Homer's Iliad—was not waged alone because of the beauty of Helen of Troy, but also because the Greeks coveted Mycenæan gold. Excavations made on the site of ancient Troy have revealed many thin plates of beaten gold.
Divining-Rods.
A, Twig; B, Trench.
From an Old Print.