Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures: The Ultimate A–Z of Fantastic Beings from Myth and Magic - John Matthews - Страница 139

A giant winged ram from the mythology of Greece and Rome. It was known as Chrysomallus, ‘The Ram with the Golden Fleece’, and this was its most famous attribute. Its fate is inextricably bound up with that of the Prince Phryxus, son of King Athamus of Thesaly. When the young man was accused by his stepmother of causing a famine in his father’s land, he fled, mounted on the ram’s back. Having reached safety at Colchis, he gave thanks to Zeus, the king of the gods, by sacrificing the ram. Its miraculous fleece was hung in the temple of the god. It later became the object of the quest for the Golden Fleece undertaken by the hero Jason and his famed Argonauts. Zeus, pleased with the sacrifice, later placed the ram in the heavens as the constellation of Aries, which rules over the astrological period 21 March to 21 April.