The Story of Minos and the Minotaur

Long ago lived a man by the name of Minos who was trying very hard to win the crown of Crete. Nothing was standing between him and kinghood, except for, of course, his very own brothers who just happened to be vying for the exact same golden prize. The brothers had been born by Europa, a woman that had been seduced a bull that was Zeus in disguise before any of them were ever born. Minos was so desperate to become the next king of Crete, that he prayed to the Poseidon, the god of the sea, to send him a sign that would signify his success in winning the crown and the title of king. He wanted the sign from the god to be a bull, which he promised to sacrifice in order to it send back to the gods as soon as laid eyes upon it.

So Poseidon kept his end of the deal and sent the bull - a beautiful white one, which Minos decided was too rare and valuable to kill once he saw it. Although he was going completely against his original word, Minos made an attempt to stay on Poseidon's good side, and killed one of his ordinary white bulls, to replace the sea-born one with. From that point on, the bull did exactly what Minos had intended it to do and Crete was a wealthy island. All was good... or so it seemed.

While Minos was carrying on in Crete and enjoying his role as the mighty king, his wife Pasiphae was busy being strangely attracted to the sea-born white bull - this was the curse set upon her by Poseidon as punishment for Mino's selfishness. Pasiphae called upon Daedalus, a carpenter, to make a convincing wooden bull that should could climb inside of and fool the white bull with. The result of her trickery was her pregnancy with the Minotaur - a mutant with the body of a human and the head and tail of a bull.

After the Minotaur was born, the queen was put greatly to shame by the public, who would obviously see it as nobody's fault but hers. However, Minos was having great internal conflicts and feeling a lot of guilt, as he knew that it was his ill deeds that had brought this cursed monster into Crete, not his own wife's promiscuity.

When the monster was born, it began being dangerous immediately. Daedalus was once again summoned, this time by the king, to build a humongous, complicated labyrinth to house the dangerous Minotaur, which was fed live children and maidens from other conquered nations.

Theseus, a brave and young man entered Crete, and Mino's daughter Ariadne, fell in love with him immediately. He inquired about slaying the Minotaur and Ariadne, being deeply and madly in love with Theseus, promised to help him find a way out of the labyrinth, which was maze-like, and nearly impossible to navigate. Her only request in return for her help was his promise to take her hand in marriage after he safely got out of the labyrinth.
So once more, Daedalus was called upon for his wits and logic. He gave Ariadne a very long piece of string. She would hold on to one end, and Theseus would hold on the other, and follow it back out of the labyrinth once he was done slaying the Minotaur.

Theseus ends up killing the Minotaur, and is the almighty hero of Crete for doing so. A very large weight is lifted off of the shoulders of Minos and all is good and well once more in his Kingdom.

The End.