The Ancients - Jason and the Argonauts

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

This week's episode from the History Hit archive features the brilliant Tom Holland telling the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, an epic story of honour, adventure, dangerous women and a golden fleece. Told with wit, verve and passion, this magical tale of the first group of super-heroes will be a treat for all, whether young or old. This was recorded at the 2016 Chalke Valley history festival and first released on the Chalke Valley History Hit Podcast.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Today we are delving back into the History Hit Archive, and the podcast I have is one that I feel you are going to absolutely love.

Why have I got a treat for you? Because it features the one and only, the brilliant storyteller and fantastic historian of ancient history, Tom Holland, storyteller and fantastic historian of ancient history, Tom Holland, talking through the epic ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts. Now, this talk was originally recorded at the Chalk Valley History Festival of 2016, so it is a few years old now, but it has lost none of its quality, as you're about to find out. Here's Tom. Well, ladies and gentlemen, were I the hero of a Greek myth, I would not need to worry about the appalling arterial traffic in South London on the M3, on the A303, the tractors that block your path as you're driving into Wilton, the people who drive infernally slowly as you're hurtling towards Ebsbourne Wake.

But unfortunately, I'm not the hero of Greek myth, so I have only just made it. There's quite a lot of mud. I've had to run through the mud. So I hope you'll bear with me if I just try and catch my breath here. And of course, it's incredibly fitting that I should be late and held up by traffic because the story I'm going to tell you today begins with a flying ram. flying ram. And not just any ram. A ram with something very, very distinctive about it. But I will come to what is distinctive about the ram in a minute. Because as in a fairy tale, so with this Greek myth, we begin with an evil stepmother. Who is this evil stepmother married to? She is married to Athemas, the king of Thessaly. And had I been efficient and got here an hour ago,

I would have been able to load the map on my memory stick, which is currently in the car that my wife is parking. So I'm going to improvise. Imagine, if you will, that this is Greece. Thessaly's here in the north of Greece. And this is the place that Athemas is king. And he's happily married to his beautiful wife, who is the daughter of Poseidon. And Poseidon is the god of what? The sea. God of the sea. And she sadly dies, but not before she has given Athemas two beautiful children. A young boy, Phrixus, and a young girl, Heli. Now, of course, we all know what happens in fairy stories, and the same thing happens in this story.

Athemas marries, and he marries a woman who turns out to be a horror and her name ladies and gentlemen is I know. Do you think that Poseidon who is the grandfather of course of these this boy and this girl do you think that he's going to just sit back in his watery palace and let this horrible woman be beastly to his grandchildren? No. He does what I think any of us would do in this situation. He sends a flying golden ram. We've all been there. We've all done it.

but this is the most handsome the most glorious golden flying ram that you have ever seen and phryxos and healy know what they have to do they jump onto it they cling onto its beautiful curling golden fleece. And off goes the ram, flying into the sky. And if I had my map, I'd be able to show you where it flew. So again, let's improvise. Let's imagine that these people with the umbrella, that's Greece. The ram flies over the Aegean Sea, and it comes to here, a very narrow, very narrow passage of water, which separates Europe and Asia.

And at this point, Healy is so overcome. Have you all been on airplanes? Okay, so you know what it's like after about two hours of flight. You want to walk around, don't you? You want to stretch your legs. So Healy gets up and she stretches her legs, a bit like that. And unfortunately, what an airplane has that the golden ram doesn't is walls. And Healy accidentally drops off the golden ram and plunges into the water below. And from that point on, that passage of water between Asia and Europe is called the Healy Spont, after Healy. However, Phrixus stays on through the Hellespont, across the Black Sea, and reaches here, a place called Colchis.

And the king of Colchis looks after Phrixus, and Phrixus is so grateful that he sacrifices the golden ram to Poseidon, which I think is kind of horrible when a magical golden ram has rescued you, that you cut its throat and then skin it of its golden fleece. But that's what Poseidon wanted. And obviously you don't just bin a golden fleece. So what the king of Colchis does is he, Colchis is a place full of witches, full of witchcraft, full of sorcery. So to make sure that no one steals the golden fleece, the king of Colchis is able to cast incredible spells over it. Just outside his palace. And he gives it, this tree, a colossal, slithering, slimy-scale dragon. With bristling ivory teeth.

And these teeth have a particular quality. Whenever the dragon loses a tooth and it drops into the soil, what do you think springs up? Yes, a skeleton warrior. Correct. Absolutely correct. A skeleton warrior. So that's bad enough. But adding to the complexity of getting to this golden fleece, anyone here who's not from Wiltshire? Anyone from maybe an urban centre? Bulls, they're terrifying, aren't they? You go over a stile, you look round, there's a bull. Actually, it's a cow, but you think it's a bull and you run.

around, there's a bull. Actually, it's a cow, but you think it's a bull and you run. Well, the king of Colchis did actually set real bulls and not just any old bulls. Their hooves were made of brass. And when they breathed, great gusts of fire came blazing out. So all in all, it was a challenge to get to. And there the golden fleece hung. But its reputation spread. And it spread back across the Black Sea, back across the Hellespont, all the way to Greece. And in Thessaly, the kings there began to feel that properly, this golden fleece should be theirs. It wasn't something that obsessed them, but it was there at the back of their minds. And one of the reasons that it didn't particularly obsess them was that they had other things on their minds.

And one of the things that really concentrated their minds was that whenever they were brothers, they didn't get on. The rightful king of Thessaly was a man called Esen. And he had a horrible younger brother called Peleus. And so horrible was this younger brother that one day he decided that he was going to try and grab the throne himself. And he got Eason and he locked him up in a great high tower and he grabbed all of Eason's children, slit their throats. And at the very moment this was happening, Eason's wife was giving birth to their youngest child. And she was terrified that Peleus' killers might burst in

and grab the baby, even as it was being born, and dispatch it. So what she did, she got the midwives and all the attendants, as the baby was born and started crying, to wail and sob themselves and to pretend that the baby had been born dead. And in that way, the little baby, whom the queen gave the name of Jason, was smuggled out of the palace and taken away up into the high mountains that loomed above Thessaly, a place called Pelion. Very, very beautiful. Maybe some of you have been on holiday there. Maybe one day you'll go. Very, very beautiful. And back then, it wasn't a place full of holiday cottages. It was wild and rugged, a place of mystery, a place haunted by gods, by nymphs, and by supernatural creatures. And there was one supernatural creature there in particular who was renowned as the

greatest teacher of his day, and he was called Chiron. And Chiron was a centaur. Now, I'm sure that all of you know what a centaur is. It's half man, half, hands up, who knows, half, yes, half horse. And by and large, centaurs were given to getting drunk and having sort of punch-ups. Terrible on a Saturday evening. You know, you go to a pub, there's a load of centaurs there, you just clear out, you don't want to risk it. But Chiron was different. Chironiron was an intellectual he was a teacher and so jason was given to chiron to bring up and that meant that as jason grew up he was instructed in the arts of being a warrior in the arts of respecting the gods and in the arts required to get your way and this mattered

because back in iolcus the capital of thessaly poor eason was still locked up in the tower and pelias was still being horrible and he was so horrible that he knew that people didn't like him you know when you're horrible you just know that people don't like you and so he was so horrible that he knew that people didn't like him. You know, when you're horrible, you just know that people don't like you. And so he was worried that somebody might come and overthrow him as he had overthrown Eson. And so he sent to Delphi, which was the great oracle, oracle, a place where you go and find out from the gods what might happen in the future. And the oracle told Peleus just one thing. Beware of a man with one sandal. Chilling words. And so everyone who came into Iolcos,

Peleus told Garth to have a look. In the years past, everyone who came into Iolcos, ladies and gentlemen, wore two sandals. Except, of course, for those with peg legs. But that didn't count. That would have been cheating. Anyway, all this time, Jason was growing up. Fine young lad. Handsome, clever, good with weapons, good with his mind.

And when he came of age, Chiron took him to one side and revealed the truth of his background. That his father was locked up in a tower, that his uncle had stolen his birthright and had killed all his brothers and sisters. And Jason, of course, was terribly upset about this, desperate to go and rescue his father. And so he decided there and then that he was going to set off down from the mountains of Peleon and go to Iolcos and confront his uncle. And off he set, followed the lane, a bit like here, winding, muddy, there'd been a lot of rain. And ahead of him, he heard the roaring and the rushing of a mighty river. When he got to it, he saw this is not going to be easy to cross at all. And he dipped his toe in it. And just as he did so,

he heard a voice from behind him. It was the voice of an old woman. And the woman said, young man. That's my impression of an old woman. Young man, would you be so kind as to help an old woman across the river? Now, how do you think Jason responded to that? Did he say, no, you horrible old woman? Or did he say, of course, because I've been brought up by Chiron and I have incredibly good manners. What do you think? Yeah, of course, of course. So he shouldered the old woman, put her on his shoulders, set off across the river.

Very, very, very difficult. Currants very harsh, boulders kept ripping up, tree trunks. But Jason, being a hero, was able to manage it. And finally, he crawled up on the other side, gently eased the old woman down, fell onto the bank, breathing deeply. And as he did so, there was a shimmering of gold. And he looked round, and the old woman was veiled in a beautiful, lustrous mist. And she was rising and rising and rising into the sky. And she was no longer old. She was young and she was beautiful. And she had an imperious air of command. And Jason knew that he was in the presence of a God.

And when he looked up at her face and he saw that this was the face of a queen, he knew who he had carried across the river. Do we know who the queen of the gods is? The wife of Zeus, the king of the gods? Let's have yes. Hera. Generally horrible.

Likes nothing more than persecuting heroes. Those of you who came to hear the story of heracles may remember hero was horrible to him but now she's on jason's right side and she says to him jason i will always be there for you good luck oh and by the, you've lost your sandal. And then she vanished. And Jason looked around for his sandal, couldn't find it, but thought, oh well, Iocas is famous for its shoe shops, like Salisbury. Not to worry, I'll be able to get a new set there.

Went off, approached the city, and of course the moment he got there, the guards fell on him, hauled him in front of Peleus, and Jason said, I am Jason's son of Eson, let him go. And Peleus was on the point of killing him when there was a great rumbling in the palace. And an arc of flame lit above the statue of Hera that stood there.

Peleus knew that he couldn't possibly kill Jason because it was evident to him that Jason was guarded by the gods and he was ashamed. And so he didn't kill Jason and he didn't automatically reject his request. Instead he says, okay, if you can prove yourself as a hero, then I will release Esau and let him become king again. However, I'm going to give you a task. going to give you a task. And that task, Jason, is that you must go and get the Thessaly Colchis a long way. Jason accepted, but he knew that he faced a terrible challenge and that he couldn't possibly go all that way on his own. So a bit like the Chalk Valley History Festival has gathered together the greatest historians in the world.

So in a very similar spirit, Jason gathered the bravest, the boldest, the most handsome, and indeed the most musical of all the heroes then in Greece. So he got Heracles, the strongest man in the world. He got Castor and Pollux, the amusingly named brothers of Helen. Children, ask your parents to explain that to you later. ask your parents to explain that to you later. And they got Orpheus, master of the lyre, whose music could charm anyone who listened to it. And a whole band more, the greatest crew ever. And he built a mighty ship. Do you know what the name of the ship was, anyone? Let's go in the back. Yes. Yes, yes.

The Argo. Yes. He called the ship the Argo. And so the people who crewed it were called the Argonauts. And before they set off, Jason offered sacrifice to Hera. set off, Jason offered sacrifice to Hera. And there was a crashing of thunder from a clear blue sky. And so Jason knew that Hera was still with him. And bravely, they set off all the way to Colchis. Now, to begin with, the journey was uneventful. But then after a while, they started reaching places and passing islands that no Greek had ever been to before. Because you have to remember that this is early in Greek history, and the Greeks had not yet gone very far with their voyages. So this was a journey into the unknown. And it so happened they arrived at an island that none of them had ever been to before. And they landed there.

And they got onto the beach, crunching up the shingle. And immediately there was the most disgusting smell maybe children um you've had the chance to smell daddy say when he's been out for a very very long run or i don't know hasn't had the chance to change his shirt, hasn't had a shower. Have you ever smelt your father when he's a bit like that? Imagine your father is smelling like that, and rather than saying, Daddy, go and have a shower, you get him to open up his armpit, and then you shove your nose right into the armpit.

Imagine that. Well, it was ten times worse than that. These women really stank. And so here was a puzzle. There seemed to be no men, and the women really reeked. What was going on? Well, it didn't take long to find out. What had happened was that the women of Lemnos had forgotten to pay their respects to Aphrodite. You know who Aphrodite is? Of course you do. The goddess of love, the goddess of beauty. By and large, not a sensible goddess for a woman to ignore. But these women had done that and so as punishment aphrodite had given them absolutely appalling body odor and however much deodorant however much perfume they put on it made no difference just made it worse in fact and so do you think

this made made them popular with their with their husbands do you think this made them popular with their husbands? Do you think? No. The men, the husbands, did what any man in that situation would do and refused to go near them. In fact, not only that, but ran off with other women who didn't smell. And so the women with the body odour got a bit cross about this. And in fact, they got so cross that they killed all their husbands. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

And so as a result, there they were, alone on this island, smelling. Good Lord, someone from Marlborough's army has just walked past. someone from Marlborough's armies just walked past him now the problem that faced the Argonauts here was that they needed the help of these women to tell them the next stage how could they go on but they couldn't concentrate because the smell of their body odor was so appalling

so what Jason did was he asked Orpheus, the greatest musician in the world, to strike up on his lyre. And the beauty of the music was such that it distracted them from the stench of these women's armpits. And Jason and the Argonauts were able to extract in that way from the women directions to their next destination. And the next destination was a place called Bear Island. Off the Argo sailed, they landed, they got off on Bear Island, crunching up the gravel, island crunching up the gravel when suddenly it was even heavier than that even more frightening than that and there were 12 of them and then there were 12 more and then there were 12 more and they looked up and they saw that they were surrounded by 12-footed, six-armed giants wearing nothing

but leather miniskirts. Now, under normal circumstances, to be confronted by a 12-legged, six-armed giant in a leather miniskirt. That's trouble. Not, however, if you have Heracles, the strongest man in the world, because this for him is chicken feed. And I'm not going to bore you with the details. Ladies and gentlemen, Heracles finishes them off in great style. These monstrous giants are just felled like that. And he goes back onto the ship with his fellow Argonauts to have an enormous celebration. They drink in the morning. Terrible hangover. And so Heracles says to his servant boy, a young lad called Hylas, Oh, I've got such a hangover.

Please can you go and get me some water and some Alka-Seltzer? And Hylas says, I've got some Alka-Seltzer here, Heracles. I'll just put that there, but I'll just go and get the water first. And so up he goes, up the hill, and he finds a beautiful pond, a beautiful pool with a spring. Gets out his water bottle, leans over, starts scooping up the water and as he does so the water nymphs look up and this boy he's a handsome boy and the water nymphs have never seen a boy before and they think brilliant someone to play with and so they grab him down and haul him down into the watery depths and heracles is back on the ship with a raging headache he can't have his Alka-Seltzer until Silas comes back with the water and he waits and he waits and he waits and finally thinks

don't have to do everything around here gets up follows Silas's footprints up into the mountain walks to the spring and hylus has vanished heracles is distraught calling his name he jumps into the pond can't find him and heracles is so upset by this that he goes back and he tells jason i can't go on with this i've got to stay here and find him. And so that's what Heracles does. And he never finds Hylus. And it's just one of the many miseries that afflict Heracles over the course of his life. But I'm not going to dwell on them because, of course, this is the story of Jason, not of Heracles. But this is the point at which Heracles leaves the Argonauts. on the Argo sails. And the next place they come to is another island.

And by this point, they're really hungry. They've run out of supplies, running very, very short. They've only got biscuits with weevils in. So when they land, they're really keen. And they smell delicious, wafts of delicious food drifting down towards them. And they get brilliant food, supper. Go rushing up. And there they see below them a beautiful palace. Have you been to Greece?

All of you been to Greece? Yes? Well, if you haven't, I mean, imagine it if you've been to a Greek taverna it's outside the sort of trestle tables pillars little vines domades um kebabs retsina all that kind of stuff that's what it was like beautiful uh and they go rushing down uh there's a there's there's a king sat there on a throne and he looks at them and he's not eating and they don't know why and he's sort of going like this to them they rush down they reach out beautiful shish kebab jason reaches down and he's just about to put in his mouth when suddenly whole load of harpies come swooping downies, hideous monsters with bat wings. And they do poos. They fly around

and they just everywhere. Disgusting. All over the food. And then they wee. So that by the time that they finished with it, the whole, every single table is covered in poo and wee. And you've got to ask yourselves, have you ever been so hungry that you would eat something that a harpy has just weed and pooed on? Ever? No, I mean, no, because it's so disgusting. It's far worse than any human wee or poo.

It kind of stings and psss. So the Argonauts realize that this is a real problem because uh how they're going to eat uh and the king tells them that um he he obviously he annoyed a god this is what always happens kings annoy gods and then awful things happen to them um and ever since he annoyed the gods, they've been sending down these harpies and he can't eat. He can't eat. And so Jason, clever lad, thinks, how am I going to solve this problem? And so the following day, you know, the food has been laid out. They're waiting. Again, Jason reaches out for a kebab.

The harpies come screaming down. Jason gives a sign. As the harpies come screaming down. Jason gives a sign. As the harpies come down, nets are dropped. And it scoops the harpies up. They're able to rustle them up and kill the harpies. And then they have the most enormous feast. And the king is so grateful that he tells them about what is coming up. And it's something even worse

than smelly women and giants in mini skirts and harpies that poo all over your food it's the clashing rocks the clashing rocks smash into each other and then withdraw smash into each other and then withdraw and smash into each other and then withdraw. And they do this at the Hellespont, the place where poor Haley dropped into the sea. So that little border between Europe and Asia. And it stops people from sailing between the Black Sea and the Aegean. Guards the tomb. No one can pass it. And the king says, you'll never get past. There's no way. But Jason knows that he has to do it. And so bravely on he sails. And they're approaching

the clashing rocks. And he sees them and they are frightening. They're like a pair of giant black rock knives. Imagine slicers coming out and going like that. You wouldn't go through it. Jason's looking at it and thinking, oh God, this is terrible. We're going to get cut in two here. And then he hears a voice in his ear, and he looks around. There's no one there. It's Hera, and she says, Watch the bird. Jason looks, and he sees that there is a seabird, and the seabird is fluttering outside the rocks,

and as the rocks start to withdraw, so the seabird darts in through and gets through and loses only a few of its tail feathers as the rocks come back. And Jason realizes this is the way to do it. So he tells the oarsman, let's float right the way up to where the rocks are. And then as they touch and start to withdraw, will give the sign and then we just row like hell and that's what they do the rocks withdraw jason goes now pulling on the oars pulling on the oars through the rocks are coming back slicing back slicing

back slicing back will they make it will they make it? Will they make it? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they make it. They make it. They make it through. And at that point, there is a great shuddering, moaning, grinding sound. The rocks judder back. There's a crunch, and then they freeze. And from that point on, the Hellespont is wide open, and people are able to travel up and down it. And to this day, that's what still happens. So you can sail from the Aegean now to the Black Sea, and the reason that you can do that is entirely thanks to the Argonauts and to the cleverness of Jason and to the inspiration of Hera. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fact.

of Hera. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a fact. So Jason and the Argonauts have achieved the seemingly impossible. Ladies and gentlemen, they have sailed from Thessaly across the Aegean. They have made it through the terrifying clashing rocks and they are now into the black sea up here they sail along the coastline of the black sea and finally journey's end colchis home of magic and witchcraft but more saliently from jason's point of view home of the golden fleece and so jason lands and he comes to the king of colchis who is a man called aetes and jason says oh king i have come all the way from thessaly i've bought you a lovely bottle of retzina i've bought you a little glass thing you shake it up and down and snowflakes fall over it's a little model of Retsina. I've bought you a little glass thing. You shake it up and down and snowflakes fall over. It's a little model of a thing called the Acropolis. You'll love it.

And I bought you a bottle of olives. Could I possibly, in return, have the golden fleece? And A.T. says, you've got to be joking joking the golden fleece is the most precious thing we possess and i will allow no one to have it unless he passes a fearsome test come jason and i.e. he leads jason by the arm and takes him through the palace and shows him the great tree on the outskirts of the palace. And there, wrapped around it, Jason sees the terrifying dragon. And in front of the dragon, he sees a field. of the dragon he sees a field and in that field are the two bulls the bulls with the brass hooves and the fire breathing from their nostrils and iet says to jason you can have the golden fleece if you can harness those two bulls to a plough and plough that field.

If you can do that, then I'll let you have the golden fleece. Otherwise, no go. So Jason thinks, oh lordy, oh I'll give it a go. And so a bit like you madam, coming to the country for the first time and gingerly going over a stile, huge herd of cows, putting your townie little toe. Oh, it's a cow pat. Flinching back over the fence and harrying back to the M25. So in a very similar manner, Jason goes over the fence and the moment he does that, there's a great blast of fire and he realizes absolutely impossible. It doesn't matter how brave he is,

it doesn't matter how clever he is, it doesn't matter how bold he is, how skillful. There is no way he can harness these bulls. Their nostrils just, the fire just comes out. It's impossible. And so he goes back and he has a terrible night. He doesn't know what he's going to do. However, Hera is looking out for him. She's been following his progress with great interest. However, Hera is looking out for him.

She's been following his progress with great interest. And she notes that this is a problem. And so what Hera does is she goes to Aphrodite. And she says, Aphrodite, I want you to do me a favor. Look down into the palace. You see Aetes? Yes, says Aphroditerodite okay next door do you see aetes daughter medea see her and aphrodite says what that incredibly beautiful princess and here it says yes that's the one. And Aphrodite says, I do.

And Hera says, I want you to make her fall madly in love with Jason. And Aphrodite says, sure. And Medea is lying in her bedroom, and suddenly she starts thinking about Jason. Pfft. Oh. He's such a hunk. And he's got such great sea legs. There's nothing about him that Medea doesn't like.

And Medea comes to Jason in the middle of the night, when Jason is sitting there thinking, oh, what am I going to do? And Medea says, listen, Jason, i'm not going to beat about the bush we women of colchis are up front when we fancy someone we tell them i fancy you here's the deal i'm going to help you get the golden fleece in return i require you to take me with you, to make me your queen, and never to stop loving me, okay? And Jason goes, yeah, all right. Okay. So they have a celebratory kiss to mark that. And Medea says, just to be clear, you've got to love me forever. And Jason goes, forever.

and jason goes forever and medea goes darling and then she reveals that she is the greatest witch in the whole of colchis and remember i told you the colchis is the home of witchcraft it's the home of sorcery so for medea to be the greatest of witches that's really quite something and she's able to help jason in the best way possible because among all her many other spells and charms medea has developed the world's greatest sunscreen. Not factor 50, ladies and gentlemen. No. Not factor 100. No. Not factor 500. Factor 5,000, ladies and gentlemen. Factor 5,000. And so she says to jason come on down to your speedos so jason strips off my dear rubs in the factor 5000 all over him and then she says okay now go and harness those bulls jason steps into the field and the the bulls blast him with a great wash of flames. But the factor 5,000 stops Jason's sensitive skin from burning.

And he's able, with his incredible heroic strength, to seize the bulls, to bend them to his will, to harness them. These had never been harnessed before, to a great plow. And up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, Jason plows the field. And by the end, the whole court has gathered to watch it, and Aetes is watching it, and Jason finishes the plowing, and then he comes to Aetes and says,

O king, I have done as you commanded. I have fulfilled your task. Now may I have the golden fleece. And Aetes says, very well, Jason. You may have it tomorrow. Tonight, let's have a great feast to celebrate. Then we'll have a working breakfast tomorrow to discuss it. And then you can take the golden fleece and off you go. And Jason goes, thank you, O King.

He thinks he's won. But just before the feast, Medea comes to him and says, Jason, you've got to watch out. My dad can't trust him. What he's planning to do, he's going to give you a good feast, hope that you'll have a lovely meal and then go back to bed and then you'll just go to sleep. And then he's going to kill the lot of you in your sleep. You'll never get that working breakfast. You'll never get the golden fleece. jason says well what are we going to do and medea says don't worry with my super witchy powers i'm equal to the challenge and so they all go to the feast and then everyone retires to up to bed and medea comes to jason wakes up all the other argonauts they creep out through the night through

the palace and medea with her powers of witchcraft, is able to make them invisible. So none of the guards see them. And out they go to the great tree. And there, of course, is the dragon. What happens to the dragon? There are various stories. Some say that Medea has a sleeping valve.

She puts on the eyes of the dragon and it falls asleep. And so Jason is able to climb up the curls and coils of that great snake and reach the golden fleece and bring it down that way. Others say that slightly more heroically, he fought the dragon and killed it. But either way, he obtained the golden fleece, and the dragon was left dead, and having grabbed the golden fleece, Medea then says, quick, we must get down to the harbor, because my father, the moment he wakes up, will realize what's happened, and in fact, probably, he's already sent his guards up into your rooms to try and kill you, come on, we must go,

and off they head, down to to the harbor and as they're rushing jason noticed that medea has brought her little brother young lad called a styanax and he says what on earth you bring your brother along for and medea says just wait and see wait and see and down they go to the ships. Jason says, come on, pull away. We've got to get out of here quickly, as fast as we possibly can. And they pull out and start skimming along the coast of the Black Sea, trying to get back to Greece. But in the meanwhile, Aetes has realized what's happened, and he is furious. And with a great bellow, he orders his ships to be fitted. and with a great bellow, he orders his ships to be fitted.

Meanwhile, he rushes out to the tree. There's the dragon dead. He loosens the teeth. He sews them into the ground that Jason had ploughed only yesterday. A minute passes, two minutes. There's a stirring along the furrows skeletal fingers start to appear pulling themselves up then skulls appear armed with spears armed with swords armed with shields an entire army of skeletons and aeti says go skeleton army i don't know why he suddenly has an American accent,

he just does. Go, skeleton army. Go and seize back the golden fleece. And the skeleton army rushes down to the ships. And they have super-skeletor powers. And that means that they can row ships incredibly fast. And that's bad news for the Argo. Even though the Argo is crewed by heroes, Aeti's fleet is crewed by skeletons. And everyone knows that a skeleton can row faster than a hero. So Jason looks around and he sees that the skeleton crewed ships of Aeti's fleet are gaining on him. And he fears the worst. And so he turns to Medea and says, what are we going to do? And Medea says, don't worry, darling. I've prepared for this eventuality. Now, are there any girls here who have younger brothers? Put your hands up if you're a girl with a younger brother.

Your younger brother ever annoy you? Yeah? Okay, I'll tell you what Medea does, because Medea found her younger brother really, really annoying. But I really don't encourage you to do what Medea did, because you might get into all kinds of trouble. Because what Medea did was to cut her younger brother's throat, chop him up into little pieces, and then bung him into the sea.

Do not do that. Do not do that. But Medea did it. And of course, Aetes sees the little bits of his darling little boy bobbing around in the sea. And he goes, stop, stop. And the skeletons are ordered to go in and scoop up all the little bits of a stein axe and put him together and by the time they've done that the

argo has sailed away and they get away and medea goes to jason and goes darling I've done it. I've saved you. And Jason is going... And the time may come, particularly... I talk to the boys now. The time may come when you discover that you've kind of paired up with the wrong girlfriend. And... Jason has his doubts about the kind of girlfriend who would slip the throat of her younger brother cut him up into little pieces and chop him into the sea seeds of doubt are sown

seeds of doubt are sown but obviously he remembers his promise that he will uh he will love her forever uh and so he doesn't really have any choice. And back they go and they get all the way back. They get to Thessaly. They get to Iolcus. And Jason leaps onto the shore of Thessaly. He goes up. He meets his uncle. And he says, their uncle throws down the golden fleece.

I have got it. Give my father back his throne. And as he does this, there is a great rumbling of thunder from a clear blue sky. And it is evident that Hera has been watching, that she approves of what Jason is saying. And Peleus knows that his number is up, that he has no choice but to agree to do as he had promised. And so he gives orders to his guards that Eason is to be released from his tower and to become king again. And he steps down and apologizes. And Eason comes tottering down. he's been in prison a very very long time and it's left him old and bent and gray i'm not commenting here on the chalk valley history festival audience

but imagine if you were a little bit like that and eisen totters up to his throne sits down and says thank you thank you my boy thank you but he's so old he's so withered he's so bent now that he's not really a very good king and it breaks Jason's heart to see it and medea who's still absolutely obsessed by jason and wants to help out there's not an issue not a problem and so she gets um what she does is she uh makes up a potion great bubbling cauldron and then she uh gets hold of Eason and she slits his throat and chops him up into little pieces and puts all the various pieces

into the great bubbling cauldron. A minute passes, two minutes pass and then suddenly Eason comes, pulls himself up out of the cauldron and he's a strapping handsome young man the golden glow of his youth has been restored and he sits on the throne and it's as he's as good as new it's as though he'd never been locked up in that dungeon and pelias's daughters have watched this, and they think, God, we'd love to do that for our dad.

And they go to Medea and they say, you know, can we do that for Peleus, please? And Medea goes, sure. Yeah. I'll make the potion for you. Remember, chop him into very little pieces. And so she brews up another potion. And then she hands the daughters of Peleas the knife.

They get hold of Daddy. Cut his throat. Chop him up into very little pieces. You know, like dicing up a carrot. That's what they do. Shove him into the cauldron and wait for him to come out looking beautiful and young. And they wait. and they wait and they wait and then medea ladles herself out a bowl of soup delicious and smiles at them and saunters off as i say a scary girlfriend to have anyway jason um jason's kind of he kind of approves of this but he's also a

little bit unsettled um and so he leaves eason to uh to his you know he leaves daddy to to rule thessaly and he goes off and he goes to corinth and he settles there um and he runs a kind of hero agency so if you you know you've got any giants to kill or dragons or anything he'll do it for you and while he's there um he becomes very close with the king of corinth and the king of corinth has a beautiful daughter and the daughter's name is cruiser and jason who by this point really has quite a few doubts about medea ends up falling massively in love with cruiser and to cut a long story short decides to dump medea and by this point you know this is a bad move because um they've had children medea is uh still absolutely obsessed by jason she doesn't take it well ladies and gentlemen she doesn't take it well and so she pretends though that she is. She pretends she's fine.

No hard feelings, Jason. Whatever. Let's move on. Let's stay friends. And in fact, to show there's no hard feelings, I'm going to give Creusa a wedding dress. A magical wedding dress. When she puts it on, she will be transformed.

And Jason goes, that's so kind, my dear. I'm so glad there are no hard feelings. Keep all the CDs. It's not an issue. It's not a problem. And so the wedding day comes. Corusa puts on the wedding dress. And what do you think happens? Do you think that the wedding dress is secretly made of fire and it eats and bites into her flesh her muscle and her bone and when she tries to rip it off great bubbling gouts of flesh come off in her hands and she dies screaming and gurgling in agony yeah that's what happens that's what happens and jason is distraught at this of, and he goes rushing back to confront Medea,

and he gets into their family home, and this is one of the darkest, most unpleasant bits in the whole of, it's not really Greek mythology, it's tragedy, because Medea has killed all their children, and she has summoned a chariot hauled by dragons. She gets into that chariot and goes swishing off, and then hitches up with Aegeus, the father of Theseus, so it all connects together.

But Jason, as you can imagine, is totally distraught at this. He's so upset, he goes wandering down to the sea, and there is the Argo, a reminder of happier days before he'd met Medea, this nightmare girlfriend. And he sits underneath the prow, and he's so unhappy that Hera, who still loves him, thinks, you know what the kindest thing would be? I'm going to do it. thinks, you know what the kindest thing would be? I'm going to do it. And with a divine finger,

she nudges the figurehead of the Argo and it falls down and it brains Jason and he's killed painlessly. And that's the end of Jason. And it's a story that begins like a fairy story and ends like a Greek tragedy. And I hope that it has not put you off learning more about the Greek myths, because in a sense, that is the definition of a Greek myth. It's something that is actually much darker, much more unpleasant,

but much more interesting than any fairy tale you were likely ever to read thank you very much