King Midas

  The story of Midas is a Greek myth. Midas, the story tells, was a king in Asia Minor. He loved gold more than anything else. When the god Dionysus offered to grant him a wish, Midas wished that everything he touched might turn to gold.
  The wish was a very foolish one, as Midas soon found out. His food turned to gold as soon as it touched his lips. To keep from starving he had to beg the god to take away his golden touch.
  Dionysus told Midas to bathe in a certain stream. He did. And that is why, the Greeks said, there was a vast amount of gold afterward in the sand of the stream. It was this gold which made Croesus, the famous king of Lydia, very rich.