new queen.

"But although they wore rags and had menial tasks to do, Phrixus
and Helle looked the children of a queen. The boy was tall, and
in his eyes there often came the flash of power, and the girl
looked as if she would grow into a lovely maiden. And when
Athamas, their father, would meet them by chance he would sigh,
and Queen Ino would know by that sigh that he had still some love
for them in his heart. Afterward she would have to use all the
power she possessed to win the king back from thinking upon his
children.

"And now Queen Ino had children of her own. She knew that the
people reverenced the children of Nephele and cared nothing for
her children. And because she knew this she feared that when
Athamas died Phrixus and Helle, the children of Nephele, would be
brought to rule in Thebes. Then she and her children would be
made to change places with them.

"This made Queen Ino think on ways by which she could make
Phrixus and Helle lose their lives. She thought long upon this,
and at last a desperate plan came into her mind.

"When it was winter she went amongst the women of the
countryside, and she gave them jewels and clothes for presents.
Then she asked them to do secretly an unheard-of thing. She asked
the women to roast over their fires the grains that had been left
for seed. This the women did. Then spring came on, and the men
sowed in the fields the grain that had been roasted over the
fires. No shoots grew up as the spring went by. In summer there