The tale begins in Iolcus, where a young hero named arrived to claim his rightful throne from his uncle, the usurper Pelias. Pelias, wary of a prophecy about a man wearing one sandal (which Jason was), struck a bargain he thought was a death sentence: "Bring me the Golden Fleece from the distant land of Colchis, and the kingdom is yours."
When they finally reached Colchis, King Aeëtes had no intention of handing over the Fleece. He demanded Jason perform "impossible" tasks: yoke fire-breathing bulls, plow a field with them, and sow dragon’s teeth that sprouted into an army of warriors. The tale begins in Iolcus, where a young
The return journey was even more twisted. To evade the King's fleet, the Argo traveled through the Danube, the Po, and the Rhine rivers, even entering the Mediterranean from the north. They faced the , whose deadly songs were drowned out by Orpheus’s even more beautiful music. They navigated between the whirlpool Charybdis and the monster Scylla . The return journey was even more twisted
The Argo itself was hauled onto the shore of the Isthmus of Corinth as a monument to the greatest voyage ever made. Years later, a weary, elderly, and forgotten Jason sat beneath the rotting hull of his old ship. As he sighed over his lost glory, a piece of the weathered timber—perhaps that same prophetic oak from Dodona—broke off and fell, striking Jason on the head and killing him instantly. Even in its decay, the Argo had the final word. They navigated between the whirlpool Charybdis and the
Jason would have perished if not for the King’s daughter, the sorceress . Smitten by Jason (thanks to a little divine intervention from Hera), she gave him an ointment to protect him from fire and told him how to defeat the earth-born soldiers. Finally, she used her magic to put the sleepless dragon guarding the Fleece to sleep. Jason seized the shimmering gold, and the Argo fled into the night with Medea aboard. The Long Way Home
In Crete, they faced , a giant bronze automaton that hurled boulders at the ship. Medea, again using her dark arts, found the single bronze nail in his ankle that held in his life-fluid (ichor), causing the giant to bleed out and collapse. The Bitter End