Sailed far just to snitch
With Medea the witch
Aries’ glorious Fleece
Atalanta
Atalanta was the only female Argonaut. She usually spent her days running wild in the hills and shooting things with her bow and arrows. Of course, having so much fun, she didn’t want to have a husband and settle down, and so, to rid herself of any suitors, she challenged them to a footrace. Being so fast, she always won and then executed the loser, saving all that bother with big white frocks and bouquets. However, her luck finally ran out when she raced sneaky Hippomenes, who threw three golden apples ahead of her as they sprinted. Unable to resist their lure, Atalanta slowed down to pick them up, pausing just long enough for Hippomenes to whip past and win. Result: wedding cake all round.
Boreas
The Greek god of winter, snow and frost, Boreas was also the god of the north wind. He had three brothers: Zephyros, god of the west wind, Notos, god of the south wind and Euros, god of blowing draughts up Scotsmen’s kilts.
Centaurs
Centaurs have the heads, arms and torsos of men and the bodies of horses. Being a somewhat temperamental bunch, they were often to be found causing havoc around Ancient Greece. Some enjoyed jumping the stalls in the market (shopping centaurs) whilst others insisted on competing in the Olympics (sports centaurs). However, the most troublesome of all were the ones who hoofed on stage in the middle of a Greek play in order to do an inappropriate tap dance. These were known as centaurs of attention.
Charybdis and Scylla (pronounced Karib-dis and Cilla)
The original Bubble and Shriek of the ocean, you wouldn’t want to come across these two terrors on your water-skiing lesson. This is because Charybdis was a ferocious whirlpool that sucked down any passing ship while Scylla was a six-headed sea-monster with tentacles and a ring of howling dogs’ heads around her waist. Best friends, these two haunted the sea close to one another, forcing any passing seafarers into a grim choice of being drowned or devoured. Hold on a minute whilst I cancel my Greek cruise …
Chiton
Although pronounced ‘kite-on’ this has nothing to do with tying a diamond-shaped flying toy on your back and running round in circles to see if you can take off. It is the name given to the draped tunics that both men and women wore in Ancient Greece.
Cyclopes
The Cyclopes were a race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of their forehead. Known for their brute strength, they often helped Hephaestus, the blacksmith god, at the forge in making thunderbolts for Zeus. They also made Artemis’s bow and arrows, Poseidon’s trident, Achilles’s sword and a range of novelty stands to set down hot pots of moussaka from the oven.
Daedalus
Daedalus was a smarty-pants Ancient Greek inventor, who made wings from wax and feathers, so that he and his son, Icarus, could escape from prison. Sadly, being a bit of a show-off, Icarus ignored his dad’s warnings not to fly too near the sun and was so busy looping the loop and throwing funky shapes to scare the seagulls that he didn’t realised how high he’d risen until the sun’s rays melted the wax of his wings. By then it was too late, and he tumbled into the sea, in a flurry of feathers, and drowned.
Drako
Drako was the nickname of the Dragon (or Drakon) of Kolkis, the huge, man-eating serpent who guarded the Golden Fleece that hung in the Sacred Grove. Never sleeping, he often passed the time by playing draughts with Aries, using the dented helmets of thieves for counters. There were lots of these lying around, being all that was left of men who’d crept in to steal the Fleece, only to end up sliding down Drako’s long, long throat instead. Games of I-Spy, however, were less fun since the giant snake always spied something beginning with ‘T’, which when you live in a forest, doesn’t make for a very exciting competition.
Eros
The toddler son of Aphrodite was a right little devil with his bow and arrows, and spent his days firing darts of desire into people’s hearts to make them fall in lurve with each other. However, having shot an arrow into Medea’s heart, the little cupid then stopped for lunch. Unfortunately, Aphrodite had mashed up some greens for him. This later triggered a terrible attack of the hiccups, meaning that the arrows he fired at Jason’s heart flew into the pond – hic! – the trees – hic! – and the feathery derrière of a chicken who happened to be passing at the time – hic!-SQUAWK! Consequently, Jason never felt the same way about Medea as she did about him, and some people might say that all the horrible things that followed weren’t really Jason’s fault at all, but down to Eros and the curse of the Brussels sprouts.
Euripides
Euripides was the name of the Ancient Greek who wrote a famous play about Medea in which he made her out to be even more of a moo than she was. (And that is certainly saying something.) His name is pronounced ‘Yoo-rip-er-dees’, and indeed, had Medea found his pile of writing before the actors, she’d quickly have instructed her familiar, ‘You rip-er-dees up!’ before anyone else could read them.
Greek chorus
A Greek chorus was a small group of actors who spoke, sang and acted as one during a play to help the audience understand what was going on. They did this by wearing large masks, depicting happy or sad faces, and going ‘Hooray!’ or ‘Woe! Woe!’ according to the play’s story. They were also handy at waking up audience members who’d nodded off and were distracting everyone else with their snoring, by lining up close by and yelling ‘Fire!’
Grey Sisters
The Grey Sisters were three old ladies who lived in a cave on a windswept hill in Ancient Greece. They had grey hair, grey skins and even greyer moods on account of having only one eye and one tooth to share among them. This situation led to dreadful squabbling, and particularly at Christmas, when there was often something good to watch on the telly and Santa had left them a bumper box of toffees to eat.
Hades (pronounced Hay-deez)
Hades is another name for the Greek Underworld and also the name of its king. Consequently the monarch’s letters were addressed to: ‘HRH Hades, Hades Castle, Hades’, which made the postman’s job much easier. Or at least it would have done if Cerberus hadn’t been quite so fond of chasing him around the royal rhododendrons.
Harpies
Vile creatures with the heads of women, the bodies of giant birds and a wicked way with their handbags, who were famous for swooping from the sky to snatch the snacks of unsuspecting passers-by.
Hecate (pronounce Heck-a-tee)
Spooky Hecate is the goddess of sorcery and magic, and is often shown in old pictures carrying two lit torches. Scholars say this is because she used them to light the way when she helped Demeter search for her daughter, Persephone, after Hades stole her away. In actual fact, she needed them each night to find her pets, a pair of badly behaved ghost dogs, called Hocus and Pocus, who loved nothing better than having a roll in the middle of a meadow at midnight. Well, have you ever tried finding ghost dogs in the dark? Quite.
Helen of Troy
The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite were one day squabbling over who was the prettiest. To stop their bickering, Zeus told Paris, a prince from Troy, to be the beauty-contest judge. Each goddess wanted to win and offered Paris a bribe: Hera promised him power; Athena, victory in war; and Aphrodite, the love of Helen, the most beautiful woman on Earth. Paris instantly crowned Aphrodite ‘Miss Olympus’ and claimed his prize.
Oh, see,
Paris and Helen,
Sitting in a tree!
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
RAMPAGE!
Lovely. Except that their romance led to the War of Troy because Helen was actually married to King Menelaus of Sparta, and he wasn’t nearly so keen on her new boyfriend.
Hippocrates (pronounced Hipp-ock-rat-eez)
Hippocrates was a real person and is considered the first Western doctor in history. Modern doctors still take his ‘Hippocratic Oath’, a set of rules rather like the Scout’s promise, which includes vowing to keep what the patient tells them a secret and not lau
ghing out loud when they show them the spots on their bottom.
Minotaur
The Minotaur was a monster with the head and shoulders of a bull and the body of a man. He was locked up in a maze beneath the royal palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. This was partly because he kept devouring young men and women, and partly because he caused the most dreadful havoc in the china shops around the island.
Nemean Lion
This monster lion lived in Nemea and ate everybody who crossed its path. No one could stop it because its coat was as tough as armour and ordinary weapons were useless against it. Nevertheless, Herakles – not being the brightest shield on the battlefield – set out to slay it with his arrows. These bounced off the lion – bing, bang, boing – thwacking Herakles on the head – ping, pang, poing – until he finally decided to bop the lion with his club and strangle it instead. Then, fancying the pelt as a cloak, he tried to skin the lion with his sword. Duh? The sword was about as much use as a banana. The sun went up, the sun went down and still he tried and indeed, he might still have been there today had it not been for Athena, who suggested he use one of the lion’s own claws to do the job instead.
Nymphs
Nymphs are female nature spirits who flounce around forests in floaty frocks going ‘Ooo!’ (the nymphs, not the frocks). They mostly spend their days singing and paddling their little feet in streams. However, they occasionally throw woodland parties, drink far too much buttercup wine and end up shouting the most unladylike words.
Obol
An obol was a silver coin used in ancient Athens. However, unlike most currency, it could be spent after death, too. This was because Charon, the skeleton ferryman, demanded a fare of one obol to take the recently departed over the River Styx and into the Underworld. Being stuck in a spidery cavern with rising damp seeping up your shinbones and an endless procession of customers who were never pleased to see you made Charon rather gloomy. But, luckily for him, those obols kept jingling into his piggy bank so that he was finally able to buy a retirement apartment, with a view of Hades castle, and bingo in the lounge on Sundays.
Odysseus
Odysseus was a right old clever-clogs who came up with the idea of the Wooden Horse of Troy. He also led the soldiers, secretly hiding in the horse’s tummy, out into the city at midnight and threw open the city gates to the Greek army, who stormed in to win the war. However, he wasn’t nearly so smart at sailing, as it took him a whole ten years to return to his island home of Ithaca, and his wife, Penelope, who’d waited there for him.
Olympus (and the Olympians)
Mount Olympus was the home of the most important Greek gods, who were known as the Olympians. However, with so many aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters living under one roof, arguments were frequent. These were made worse when the gods’ pets joined in. On such occasions Zeus’s eagle would pummel Aphrodite’s doves, Hermes’s tortoise would tuck into his shell and bowl himself at Hera’s peacock and Apollo’s swans would snap Poseidon’s fish up in their beaks and fling them out of the window. Only Athena’s owl, being the most sensible and wisest of the creatures, could be relied upon to behave well and he could always be found under the bed reading a good scroll.
Orpheus
Orpheus was a master-musician whose lyre-playing was so beautiful that it charmed the birds from the skies, the wolves from the woods and made the trees boogie on down. As one of the Argonauts, his sensational strumming smothered the songs of the ship-sinking sirens, meaning that the crew sailed safely home.
Panathenea
This festival, held in ancient Athens, celebrated Athena’s birthday and was famous for its procession of heroes, musicians and poets, all wishing the goddess many happy returns. Her presents included a gigantic dress for her gigantic statue and lots of animal sacrifices. Some people think that one of the marble friezes on her temple, the Parthenon, shows the event. However, despite extensive examinations of the remaining chunks of stone, archaeologists haven’t found a single picture of a birthday cake or a balloon. Well, some birthday, I must say.
Pegasus
Pegasus was a beautiful white flying horse that put the ‘up’ in ‘Giddy up!’ and the ‘rise’ in ‘rising trot’. Always a bit of a show-off, he enjoyed hoofy-dancing high in the sky, where he performed kicks and twirls in the clouds. However, his spectacular dressage could occasionally lead to an accidental flurry of doo-doo mess-age, which ultimately led to the invention of the fabulous Athenian-reinforced umbrella.
Penelope
Penelope, the wife of the hero, Odysseus, waited many years for her husband to return from the War of Troy. During that time, lots of other suitors, who believed he’d died, wished to marry her, but she declined, saying that she would only choose a new husband when she had finished her tapestry. This she unpicked every night so that the picture – a delightful harbour in Ithaca, filled with fishing boats, gulls and snappy-clatters of crabs line-dancing on the shore – would never be completed, leaving her free to stitch and twitch until her husband finally returned.
Poseidon
Poseidon, god of the sea, lived far beneath the waves in a glittering palace of coral. When he was happy, the sea was calm. But when he was angry, he made it rage. Whipping the water into a fury, he’d rise up from the froth to jab things with his trident. Such tantrums caused earthquakes, shipwrecks and tidal waves, not to mention playing absolute havoc with the jellyfish, which were left spinning for days.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras was an Ancient Greek mathematician, most famous for thinking about triangles, and one day your maths teacher might well mention him. The old Greek’s work on geometry involved lots of pacing about on the beach, assisted by Adder, who still blushes to recall the day that the old man finally cracked the puzzle, flung his robes up over his wrinkly knees and performed an early version of the cancan in the sea. However, since this is not recorded in the history books, your maths teacher will probably say it never happened.
Scylla
Charybdis’s best buddy – see above.
Sisyphus (pronounced Sissy-fuss)
Sisyphus was a fiendish Greek king who loved lying and deceiving others and topped off his treachery by murdering his guests. For these crimes, he was sent to Tartarus, the Underworld’s terrifying prison. Here, he was sentenced to push a backbreaking boulder to the top of a steep hill. However, as soon as he’d achieved this agonising feat, the boulder rumbled back down the slope again to the bottom, condemning him to repeat his task over and over for eternity. This made him the original King of Rock and Roll.
Sphinx
The Greek Sphinx was a mythical creature with the head of a woman and the body of a lion. She was said to guard the city of Thebes and wouldn’t let anyone pass unless they could answer her annoying riddles. If they failed, she ate them. Her most famous brainteaser was: ‘Which creature has four feet, then two feet, then three?’ Any ideas?63
Stymphalian Birds
The Stymphalian Birds were the pets of Ares, the god of war. However, unlike other pet birds, such as parrots, they ate people, pooped poison and had beaks made of bronze. Worse, anyone foolish enough to ask them ‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ never found out the answer because it’s impossible to hear when your head is stuck halfway down a bird’s throat.
Theseus
Theseus was the man who killed the Minotaur, a monster who was half-man and half-bull. In order to defeat it, he needed all of his Greek fighting skills, together with a good dollop of bullfighting know-how. Luckily for him, he was as graceful as a matador and swift as a picador. However, once he’d done the deed, he then needed to find-a-door since he was still stuck inside the creature’s maze-like prison. This he did by following the trail of wool he’d unravelled behind him on his way in.
63 The answer is MAN. This is because a baby crawls on its hands and knees (four ‘legs’), an adult walks on two legs and an elderly person uses a stick (making three ‘legs’ in all). I know. Not much of a punch line, is it
?
THE LEGEND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE
According to Apollonius of Rhodes64
Long, long ago, the brave and handsome Jason learned that he was the true king of Iolkos, a city-state in Ancient Greece. However, his wicked uncle Pelias had crowned himself king many years before and when Jason demanded his rightful place back, Pelias agreed to step down on one condition: that Jason sail across the sea to bring him back the Golden Fleece.
The Fleece was a ram’s coat made of pure gold and the most valuable thing on Earth. It belonged to King Aetes of Kolkis, who sought to keep it safe by hanging it at the top of a tall tree in a magical glade, where it was guarded by a gigantic, man-eating snake. The serpent never slept. Instead, with its coils wrapped tightly about the tree’s trunk, it watched, night and day, for intruders, its snout resting on the scatter of bones and armour that was all that was left of the men who’d tried in the past. And so Pelias felt certain that since the quest was so dangerous Jason would never return to bother him again.
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