two brazen bulls
had heard his foot-tramp and were lifting up their hot noses to snuff
the air. He went a little further, and by the way in which the red vapor
now spouted forth he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet.
Now he could see glowing sparks and vivid jets of flame. At the next
step each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while
the 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
grip like that of an iron vise, 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 grip 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 supp