English 220: Mythology: The Hero Quest

A tale of Gilgamesh shows how the people regarded nature. Gilgamesh kills Humbaba, the evil God of the cedar forest so the people could use the trees and advance civilization.

This program explores one of the oldest stories in all of Greek mythology. Michael Wood traces the route of Jason and his famous boat, the Argo, from Greece to Turkey and modern-day Georgia. It begins in the town of Volos in Greece-where King Pelias feared Jason a contender to this throne and sent him on the impossible mission to the kingdom of Colchis on the Black Sea to retrieve the magical Golden Fleece. Similarly, Wood travels by boat to the Greek islands and Turkey, where he discovers whole communities of Pontic Greek-still living and speaking Greek in contemporary Turkey. Are they the hangover from hordes of ancient Greeks pushing east and exploring the Black Sea? Was the myth inspired by this exploration? In the end, in the remote region called Svaneti, Wood finds the true source of the myth: tribesmen have for centuries panned for gold in the river using sheep's fleece. A part of the series In Search of Myths and Heroes.