Golden Fleece

Ino persuaded her husband, Athʹamas, that his son Phryxos was the cause of a famine which desolated the land, and the old dotard ordered him to be sacrificed to the angry gods. Phryxos being apprised of this order, made his escape over sea on a ram which had a golden fleece. When he arrived at Colchis, he sacrificed the ram to Zeus, and gave the fleece to King Æeʹtēs, who hung it on a sacred oak. It was afterwards stolen by Jason in his celebrated Argonautic expedition. (See Argo.)

“This rising Greece with indignation viewed,

And youthful Jason an attempt conceived

Lofty and bold: along Peneʹusʹ banks,

Around Olympusʹ brows, the Musesʹ haunts,

He roused the brave to re-demand the fleece.”

Dyer: The Fleece, ii.

Golden fleece of the north. The fur and peltry of Siberia is so called.

⁂ Australia has been called “The Land of the Golden Fleece,” because of the quantity of wool produced there.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Golden Fleece

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