‘Such was the lover-like tempo that had taken up residence in the virile bodies of the Argonauts during their voyage; such was the rhythm that governed our movements when we found dry land under our feet at last.
‘And the women of Lemnos had been alone a long time…’
Here the second mate paused in his narrative and reached for the water jug. His audience sighed gustily and sipped their drinks, pleased with the story so far. Meanwhile, I seized this opportunity to put a question to the evening’s guest of honour, Raguel Bastesen, the director of the paper mills (he claimed Icelandic descent through a grandmother from Hnífsdalur), saying by way of a preamble:
‘Today I have been looking down the fjord, or perhaps up it, I simply can’t work out which is which. I can’t for the life of me understand where the entrance is to this bowl we’re sitting in. When I asked Captain Alfredson this morning which direction we had entered the fjord from — by your leave, Captain — he answered by pointing due north, to where the rock wall is at its highest. But I couldn’t see any gap by which we could have entered, nor can the MS Elizabet Jung-Olsen — excellent ship as she is — sail straight through the Norwegian fjeld.’
My dinner companions gave a murmur of laughter at this last sally. I tilted my head, looking waggishly at Captain Alfredson to ensure that everyone knew the joke was on me, not him. And added:
‘You see, I assumed we had come from the south where the mountains are lowest.’
Then I came to my question:
‘So I appeal to you, Herr Director, as a local; what species of fish are most common in this fjord?’
To my astonishment Raguel Bastesen seemed at a loss:
‘Er, that’s a good question…’ the director muttered, plucking at his right earlobe and rubbing it between finger and thumb while he considered his answer. I filled the gap:
‘You see, it occurred to me that we might be able to purchase some fresh fish for the pot.’
At this he seemed to wake up:
‘Oh, no, I doubt that, Mr Haraldsson, fish don’t find their way up here in any great number. It’s mainly in April that you get a shoal or two of cod straying into the fjord by mistake. Then you can catch the odd fish with a rod, some of them quite large, but we don’t see any other species.’
I had difficulty hiding my disappointment at Director Bastesen’s ‘neither nor’ reply. My dinner companions were not especially concerned, having shown nothing but satisfaction with the catering on board, so I thanked him politely and the captain gave the mate Caeneus a sign to resume his tale, which he did:
‘Our ship was the Argo of the many nails, the greatest vessel of her age. The timbers of her hull came from the forests of Mount Pelion, where Jason son of Aeson had been fostered until the age of twenty by Master Cheiron, Cheiron’s mother, his wife and his daughters — and this Cheiron was half man, half horse, or what the poets call a “centaur”. The trees of the forest containing the future strakes of the yet-to-be-built ship were felled under the guidance of this same Cheiron who chose only those trees that had achieved their full maturity during the time the future captain of our ship had shared the mountain with them. Indeed, while their branches had been stretching their leafy crowns to the skies and their roots sucked nourishment from the fertile soil of the Pelion heights, the young Jason’s muscles had been tempered by the practice of sports on the mountainsides by day, while by night his intellectual gifts were honed in debate and song in the deep cavern of his tutor.
‘Yet although Jason’s mind and hand had such a deep rapport with the vessel that he was to steer, it was evident that it would require more than mere mortal strength to achieve the superhuman task that had been laid upon us. So the day the ship was deemed ready to launch, bright-eyed Athena descended to earth among the shipwrights and fitted in her prow a beam from the whispering oak of her father Zeus. With this gift the Argo became the eighth wonder of the world, and the speaking bow timber was to be our guide throughout the perilous quest that lay ahead.
‘Now the bow timber had some motherly advice for Jason son of Aeson, captain of the Argo, telling him to order his crew back on board and continue on his way. Gently but firmly she reminded him that by our hazardous voyage into the blue grasp of Poseidon the earth-shaker, who could easily twiddle the greatest galley in the world like a sixpence between his blue fingers — by this voyage, we Argonauts were intending to be the first men ever to negotiate the Clashing Rocks. For thus we would enter the Black Sea to reach the land of Colchis and find the golden fleece that Jason’s people had lost and wished to recover. They had promised to make him king if he fulfilled this quest.
‘But as Jason son of Aeson stood foursquare on the gangway with the message from doe-eyed Hypsipyle in his upraised hand, he was deaf to the ship’s voice of reason. The Queen of Lemnos had concluded her letter with the words that he was welcome to a banquet at her palace together with those of his crew who were not standing watch that evening. So now Jason ordered us Argonauts to ready ourselves for a visit to the nation of women.
‘Jason buckled on his purple mantle of double fold, a gift he had received from the hand of Athena the day the keel was laid in our ship the Argo, and this mantle was a creation of such blazing splendour that it rivalled the dawn; red as fire in the middle, deepening to indigo at the richly illustrated hem. This hem was embroidered with gold and told the story of the siblings Phrixus and Helle, children of King Athamas and the cloud goddess Nephele. When their stepmother Ino convinced their father that he should sacrifice his children to prevent the harvest from failing in the land of Iolcus, they escaped on the back of a certain golden-fleeced talking ram.
‘Having flown a longish way, the children began to tire and it so chanced that midway the girl Helle fell to earth over the sea of Marmara which has been known ever since as the Hellespont. But at the ram’s urging the boy Phrixus clung on for dear life to his dazzling woolly coat and so at last they reached land at Colchis. There the boy married the princess, sacrificed the ram and dedicated the sacrifice to the war god Ares. He hung the blazing gold fleece in a grove of trees, casting a web of spells so that it would be guarded by a sleepless dragon and no man would ever be able to lay hands on it. Meanwhile, back in Iolcus, the children’s homeland, the people thought it a national disgrace to have lost the fabled ram into the clutches of the men of Colchis.
‘All these events could be seen woven into our captain Jason’s purple cloak. And where the story of Phrixus and Helle ended, his own story began.