Muller, it had its origin in the worship of Zeus Laphystius; the fleece is the pledge of reconciliation; Jason is a propitiating god of health, Medea a goddess akin to Hera; Aeetes is connected with the Colchian sun-worship. Forchhammer saw in it an old nature symbolism; Jason, the god of healing and fruitfulness, brought the fleece - the fertilizing rain-cloud - to the western land that was parched by the heat of the sun.
Besides the local Baal there were " the god of heaven" (El) and other deities; human sacrifices as a means of propitiating the divine wrath were not uncommon.
The Zulus are so absorbed in propitiating the shades of their dead (who, though in serpentine bodies, have human dispositions) that they appear to take little pleasure in mythological narratives.
