Hmm, a historical basis for the Golden Fleece?

[eve_prime]

After a fairly long day (peeking in on Arnold, who was abruptly in the hospital again today; spending a few quiet hours at work -- it's quite possible that I didn't talk to anyone at all there besides Shawn; stopping at Sundance and buying strawberry, peach, and cranberry spritzers, and at Black Sun, where I found three books I'd like; then mowing the entire lawn), finally I collapsed onto a chair with one of my "sun books" -- The Ulysses Voyage by Tim Severin. I didn't know anything about this fellow, but apparently (and I only got to page 16 before duty called again) he's created quite a career of replicating ancient voyages. His previous books included reenactments of voyages of St. Brendan (who sailed from Ireland to Iceland, encountering a whale along the way), Jason, and Sindbad. That is, St. Brendan was real, but to the extent that fictional ones can be reenacted, why not? So on the far side of the Black Sea, Severin learned about the Svan people of the Caucasus mountains who had an "ancient technique of submerging sheepskins in the stream-beds so that grains of alluvial gold were trapped in the wool." Hence, Jason.

The three books I saw at Black Sun Books:

• In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World's First Prophet, by Paul Kriwaczek


• Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists, by Tony Perrottet


• The Essential Rumi, trans. by Coleman Barks


(Happy birthday to my dad!)