The Prince and the Golden Ax by Deborah Nourse Lattimore, 1988.

This story is based around the ancient Minoan civilization and the destruction of the island of Thera. Thera was a real place, and it was actually destroyed, but the story itself is fiction, based upon the pieces of information that the Minoans left behind about their culture.

When the story begins, the city of Knossos on Crete is the home of the Goddess Diktynna. Princess Illyra and her brother, Akros, are on their way to Crete from Thera with their fleet of ships. Akros is eager to show off his skills at the games on this feast day, although Illyra cautions him to not show off too much and to remember to honor the goddess.

When they arrive at Crete, they are shown the goddess’s shrine with her statue holding the golden ax that is the source of her power. Akros is impressed by the golden ax and begins to think that if he had the ax, he could use it to bring glory to Thera. At the feast games, Akros shows off his ability to wrestle a bull. Full of pride for himself, he declares that he’s even better than the goddess because he did it without a golden ax. The goddess is angered by his comments and causes an earthquake.

The priestess says that Akros has challenged the goddess, and in order to make amends, Akros must find the golden-scaled fish of the Eastern Isle and obtain a bronze ax. If he fails to complete this task, the goddess’s golden ax will destroy Thera. Akros has no choice but to accept the challenge.

Illyria has the ability to use magic, and she helps her brother to complete the task successfully, but Akros can’t resist bragging about how easy it all was, angering the goddess again. This boast earns him a more difficult task, to capture a griffin and earn a silver ax.

Once again, Illyria helps Akros to succeed in his task, but when he is presented with the silver ax, Akros insists that it’s not good enough for him and that he wants the golden ax. The priestess says that only a godlike hunter can have that ax, and if he tries to get it, his homeland will be destroyed. Still, Akros insists that he can prove that he’s good enough by catching a creature that no one, man or god, has ever caught before.

What Akros has in mind is catching the blue monkeys on the island of Thera. This time, Illyria refuses to help him because the blue monkeys are sacred. At first, Akros thinks that he’s managed to capture the blue monkeys without her help, but they have abilities that he never expected. As promised, when Akros fails to accomplish his boast, the island of Thera is destroyed, and Illyria and Akros only narrowly escape.

The book ends with the discovery of the remains of the palace of Knossos centuries later, when the image of the goddess and a small ax are discovered.

My Reaction

I knew at the beginning of the story that there couldn’t be a happy ending because I already knew what happened to the real island of Thera, now called Santorini. The island was largely destroyed by a volcanic eruption during the Minoan period, a cataclysm that may have sparked the legend of the sunken island of Atlantis. However, this story does not mention Atlantis, instead using the statue of a goddess found in the remains of the palace of Knossos as inspiration. In spite of the ending, I wouldn’t call this a sad story. The book doesn’t dwell on the aftermath of the destruction of Thera, and we don’t actually see much of the civilization of Thera, so there isn’t much for us to miss when it’s destroyed. The colorful pictures throughout the book are beautiful and actually feel rather cheery.