Some time after, Pelias, the usurping king of Iolcus, was driving a mule-car through the market-place, when he saw a fine young man, with hair flowing on his shoulders, two spears in his hand, and only one sandal.  He was very much afraid, for it had been foretold to him by an oracle that he would be slain by the man with one foot bare.  And this youth was really Jason, the son of his brother Æson, from whom he had taken the kingdom.  Fearing that he would kill the child, Æson had sent it away to the cave of the Centaur Chiron, by whom Jason had been bred up, and had now come to seek his fortune.  He had lost his shoe in the mud, while kindly carrying an old woman across a river, little knowing that she was really the goddess Juno, who had come down in that form to make trial of the kindness of men, and who was thus made his friend for ever.  Pelias sent for the young stranger the next day, and asked him what he would do if he knew who was the man fated to kill him.  “I should send him to fetch the Golden Fleece,” said Jason.