ith giants and
slain dragons; and the younger ones, who had not yet met with such
good fortune, thought it a shame to have lived so long without getting
astride of a flying serpent or sticking their spears into a Chimaera,
or at least thrusting their right arms down a monstrous lion's throat.
There was a fair prospect that they would meet with plenty of such
adventures before finding the Golden Fleece. As soon as they could
furbish up their helmets and shields, therefore, and gird on their
trusty swords, they came thronging to Iolchos and clambered on board
the new galley. Shaking hands with Jason, they assured him that they
did not care a pin for their lives, but would help row the vessel to
the remotest edge of the world and as much further as he might think
it best to go.

Many of these brave fellows had been educated by Chiron, the
four-footed pedagogue, and were therefore old schoolmates of Jason and
knew him to be a lad of spirit. The mighty Hercules, whose shoulders
afterward held up the sky, was one of them. And there were Castor and
Pollux, the twin brothers, who were never accused of being
chicken-hearted, although they had been hatched out of an egg; and
Theseus, who was so renowned for killing the Minotaur; and Lynceus,
with his wonderfully sharp eyes, which could see through a millstone
or look right down into the depths of the earth and discover the
treasures that were there; and Orpheus, the very best of harpers, who
sang and played upon his lyre so sweetly that the brute beasts stood
upon their hind legs and capered merrily to the music. Yes, and at
some of his more moving tunes the rocks bestirred their moss-grown
bulk out of the ground, and a grove of forest trees uprooted
themselves and, nodding their tops to one another, performed a country
dance.

One of the rowers was a beautiful young woman named Atalanta, who had
been nursed among the mountains by a bear. So light of foot was this
fair damsel that she could step from one foamy crest of a wave to the
foamy crest of another without wetting more than the sole of her
sandal. She had grown up in a very wild way and talked much about the
rights of women, and loved hunting and war far better than her needle.
But in my opinion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two
sons of the North Wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering
disposition), who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a
calm, could puff out their cheeks and blo