A few months later he presented the plans for a giant labyrinth to hold the half-man and half-bull monster, known as the Minotaur, prisoner. King Minos approached Daedalus to ask if he might be able to invent something less pretty but more useful and Daedalus did notĭisappoint. Instead of clocks people kept track of the time using sundials.Īnd so, the tiny mechanical bird that chirped when the sun rose – given by Daedalus to the newborn princess toĬelebrate her birth - became the talk of everyone in the land. Instead of cars, people got from place to place by walking or if they were wealthy by riding on a horse or People learned what was new in the land by listening to the gossip at the local inn. Now this was a very long time ago – and in this ancient time there were no televisions or cars or clocks. Inventor of strange and wonderful mechanical creations. Daedalus was just an ordinary man, except for one special talent – he was an On the island of Crete during the age of King Minos, there lived a man named Daedalus and his young son Icarus. © written and illustrated by Leanne Guenther The flight of Daedalus and Icarus though had left no clue as to direction travelled, and so King Minos was in for a long search.DLTK's Countries and Cultures - Greek Mythology Some sources though claim that the Greek hero Heracles had witnessed the death of Icarus, and recognising the boy as the son of Daedalus, Heracles was said to have performed the necessary funeral rites which Icarus’ father had been unable to do.īack on Crete the escape of Icarus and Daedalus which had gone unnoticed was eventually discovered, and Minos would set out with his fleet to recover Daedalus, for the king of Crete did not want the craftsman working for anyone else. The area of water where Icarus hit would become known as the Icarian Sea, whilst the previously unnamed island where the body of Icarus washed up was subsequently called Icaria.ĭaedalus of course had to watch his son fall to his death with no way of intervening, the grieving Daedalus would have to fly on alone to safety. In a very short time, all that Icarus was left clinging onto were the wooden frames, and so Icarus plunged seawards, dying as he hit the water. The worst fears of Daedalus were soon realised for as Icarus flew closer to the sun, the wax began to melt, and the feathers soon became detached from the wooden frame. Icarus had become over confident, and ignoring the warnings previously given by Daedalus, he started to fly higher and higher. Minos though did not want to lose the services of the master craftsman, and so rather than being executed, Daedalus and Icarus were instead locked away in a tall tower (or in other sources father and son were locked within the Labyrinth). Initially though, King Minos was more angry about the help given by Daedalus than he was about the intrigue of his own daughter Ariadne. Theseus was thus able to slay the Minotaur, and soon the Greek hero and Ariadne were fleeing from Crete. To aide Theseus, Ariadne had enlisted the help of Daedalus, the man who had designed the Labyrinth beneath the palace at Knossos, and so Theseus entered the domain of the Minotaur with a ball of twine and a sword. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, though, had spied Theseus as he arrived upon the island, and had fallen in love with the Greek hero. Theseus was due to be one of the Athenian youths scheduled to be sacrificed to the Minotaur as part of the tribute paid to King Minos by Athens. The fall from grace for Daedalus, and the downfall of King Minos, was to follow several years later, for the Athenian hero Theseus was destined to arrive upon Crete.
0 kommentar(er)
