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
was no waving greenness in the fields. Autumn came, and there was
no grain for the reaping. Then the men, not knowing what had
happened, went to King Athamas and told him that there would be
famine in the land.
"The king sent to the temple of Artemis to ask how the people
might be saved from the famine. And the guardians of the temple,
having taken gold from Queen Ino, told them that there would be
worse and worse famine and that all the people of Thebes would
die of hunger unless the king was willing to make a great
sacrifice.
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