burning breath, which they thus belched forth, lit up the
whole field with a momentary flash. One other stride did bold Jason
make; and, suddenly as a streak of lightning, on came these fiery
animals, roaring like thunder, and sending out sheets of white flame,
which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every
object more distinctly than by daylight. Most distinctly of all he saw
the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen
hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground, and their tails sticking up
stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls.
Their breath scorched the herbage before them. So intensely hot it was,
indeed, that it caught a dry tree under which Jason was now standing,
and set it all in a light blaze. But as for Jason himself (thanks to
Medea's enchanted ointment), the white flame curled around his body,
without injuring him a jot more than if he had been made of asbestos.

Greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the
young man awaited the attack of the bulls. Just as the brazen brutes
fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air, he caught one of
them by the horn, and the other by his screwed-up tail, and held them
in a gripe like that of an iron vice, one with his right hand, the other
with his left. Well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms,
to be sure. But the secret of the matter was, that the brazen bulls were
enchanted creatures, and that Jason had broken the spell of their fiery
fierceness by his bold way of handling them. And, ever since that time,
it has been the favorite method of brave men, when danger assails them,
to do what they call "taking the bull by the horns"; and to gripe him
by the tail is pretty much the same thing--that is, to throw aside fear,
and overcome the peril by despising it. It was now easy to yoke the
bulls, and to harness them to the plow, which had lain rusting on the
ground for a great many years gone by; so long was it before anybody
could be found capable of plowing that piece of land. Jason, I suppose,
had been taught how to draw a furrow by the good old Chiron, who,
perhaps, used to allow himself to be harnessed to the plow. At any rate,
our hero succeeded perfectly well in breaking up the greensward; and,
by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky, the
plowed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be
sown with