ustration: HOW THE SERPENT THAT GUARDED THE GOLDEN FLEECE WAS
SLAIN.]

And now the Fleece was won. But it was weary work bringing it home to
Greece, and Medea and Jason did a deed which angered the gods. They slew
her brother Absyrtus, who followed after them with a fleet, and cut him
limb from limb, and when Aetes came with his ships, and saw the dead
limbs, he stopped, and went home, for his heart was broken. The gods
would not let the Greeks return by the way they had come, but by strange
ways where never another ship has sailed. Up the Ister (the Danube)
they rowed, through countries of savage men, till the 'Argo' could go no
farther, by reason of the narrowness of the stream. Then they hauled her
overland, where no man knows, but they launched her on the Elbe at last,
and out into a sea where never sail had been seen. Then they were driven
wandering out into Ocean, and to a fairy, far-off isle where Lady Circe
dwelt. Circe was the sister of King Aetes, both were children of the Sun
God, and Medea hoped that Circe would be kind to her, as she could not
have heard of the slaying of Absyrtus. Medea and Jason went up through
the woods of the isle to the house of Circe, and had no fear of the
lions and wolves and bears that guarded the house. These knew that Medea
was an enchantress, and they fawned on her and Jason and let them pass.
But in the house they found Circe clad in dark mourning raiment, and all
her long black hair fell wet and dripping to her feet, for she had seen
visions of terror and sin, and therefore she had purified herself in
salt water of the sea. The walls of her chamber, in the night, had shone
as with fire, and dripped as with blood, and a voice of wailing had
broken forth, and the spirit of dead Absyrtus had cried in her ears.

When Medea and Jason entered her hall, Circe bade them sit down, and
called her bower maidens, fairies of woods and waters, to strew a table
with a cloth of gold, and set on it food and wine. But Jason and Medea
ran to the hearth, the sacred place of the house to which men that have
done murder flee, and there they are safe, when they come in their
flight to the house of a stranger. They cast ashes from the hearth on
their heads, and Circe knew that they had slain Absyrtus. Yet she was of
Medea's near kindred, and she respected the law of the hearth.
Therefore she did the rite of purification, as was the custom, cleansing
blood with blood, and she burned in the fire a cake