[5] The prince, Anaxagoras' son, suffered from a strange malady and the king offered a reward for anybody that could heal him.
Melampus, a local seer, killed an ox and talked to the vultures that came to eat the corpse.
They told Melampus that the prince had been frightened of the big, bloody knife and the king tossed it aside to calm the child.
The hamadryad told Melampus that the boy would be healed if the knife was taken out of the trunk of the tree and boiled, then the rusty water that resulted drunk by the prince.
When the women of Argos were driven mad by Dionysus, in the reign of Anaxagoras, Melampus was brought in to cure them, but demanded a third of the kingdom as payment.