Jason & The Dragon's Teeth
Some of you may remember the Ray Harryhausen movie "Jason and the Argonauts", particularly the scene where he has a swordfight with a troupe of skeletons.
Well, in an earlier version (probably a few thousand years earlier) the story was a little different.
As was the way in those days, to prove himself our eponymous hero Jason was set the task of "sowing the dragon's teeth".
He did as instructed and in a quirk of mythological era biology, the dragon's teeth sprouted into a thousand giant warriors clad in bronze armor.
A thousand warriors was way too many even for a noted mythic hero like Jason to fight, but luckily as is the way in these stories, a wise old mentor had given him the secret to defeating them:
"Just throw a rock at one of them. The giants are stupid and will assume another giant has thrown the rock. They'll get angry and fight each other".
Jason did as he was told and sure enough the giants started to fight each other. When the fighting simmered down Jason would throw another rock to just to kick it all off again. He spent several hours watching and lobbing the occasion rock into the throng.
I'm reminded of that story these days when I watch the news on TV. I haven't figured out who's lobbing the rocks, but we can all see the results.
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