golden fleece/life saving blanket

The very early origin of the myth in preliterate times means that during the more than a millennium during which it was to some degree or other part of the fabric of culture its perceived significance can be expected to have passed through numerous developments, in the end losing cultural significance expressed in any ritual and passing into the stock-in-trade of poets and artisans. All extant interpretations are greatly post facto and in greater or lesser degree rationalizations that suffer from very incomplete knowledge of the culture in which it arose. Most have been effectively criticized in the archaeological literature. An attempt to construct a most plausible explanation by locating it in what is known of that culture points, interestingly, to one of the earliest proposals, namely that the Golden Fleece represents the ideas of kingship and legitimacy; hence the journey of Jason to find it, in order to restore legitimate rule to Iolcos. [wikipedia]