INTO THE LABYRINTH king king Minos was the rich and powerful ruler of the island of Crete He was loved by the gods And he was a little too used to getting everything he wanted One day Minos was walking on the beach It was a beautiful day and he was feeling grateful to the gods for his happy life He asked the gods for an animal He wanted to kill it in honor of the gods This was known as a sacrifice Sacrifices made the gods happy The sea god Poseidon heard Minos’s request The most beautiful bull Minos had ever seen appeared on the beach Ruins of ancient palaces can still be found on Crete today 5
When Minos saw the amazing bull he couldn’t bring himself to kill it Instead he hid the bull to keep for himself Minos sacrificed an ordinary bull for CRETE Today the island of Crete is part of Greece Long ago there was another culture on Crete This culture was the Minoan civilization It was named for King Minos Crete was the location of another important event in Greek mythology The god Zeus was born on Crete Zeus later became the king of all the gods Poseidon But Poseidon was a god He noticed the difference Poseidon was angry at Minos’s disrespect Aphrodite the goddess of love was angry too Together the two gods planned revenge Aphrodite put a spell on Pasiphae Minos’s wife Soon the queen had a child The baby had a human body and a bull’s head He became known as the Minotaur and as he grew he began to eat people 6
THE MINOTAUR AND THE LABYRINTH King Minos was horrified He had a complicated maze built inside his kingdom He sent the Minotaur to live in the maze alone This lonely puzzle of a home was called the Labyrinth King Minos used the Labyrinth for his own revenge He was angry with the city of Athens so he demanded a sacrifice from the city Every nine years Athens had to send him seven young men and seven young women He sent these unlucky people to the Labyrinth They met the Minotaur there and never came back This terrible tradition continued until the famous hero Theseus came to Crete Heroes are the children of gods or kings They go on adventures to achieve some special task On the way they face obstacles such as monsters and evil kings Theseus entered the Labyrinth and killed the Minotaur One of Minos’s daughters the clever Ariadne helped him The princess helped Theseus solve the puzzle of the maze She gave him a 7
