Happy Memorial Day, Missians!
I know a lot of you have fired up the grill, made some cool, refreshing beverages, and may even have some fireworks on deck for tonight. If so, enjoy your festivities and remember to keep your pets safe and out of harm's way. With that being said, it's the last Monday in May, which means today is our last Mythical Monday post. I may decide to bring some more mythical beasts back out in October, for our October Pet Spooktacular, month-long shows and blog posts--or I might opt to keep this as something special for May, (we'll see).
Today's Mythical Beast is the Minotaur. This creature always fascinated me when I was kid, when I went through a phase of being obsessed with Greek Mythology. The only issue was, I was getting this creature and the Centaur confused; so I guess it would be more accurate to say that I was fascinated by both the Minotaur and the Centaur, interchangeably. But let's clear up the confusion between the two before we proceed.
The Centaur is a creature who had the head, arms, chest, (the upper torso), of a man, while the bottom half of its body was that of a horse. There was more than one Centaur. There was sort of like a race of them.
The Minotaur is a mythological creature having the head of a bull and the body of a man. There was only one of him. How the Minotaur came to be, however is more than a little bit freaky. Okay so here's the break down, The Minotaur is the offspring of a human mother and a snow white bull. Yeah, I know, but let me give you the back story of why this woman wanted to get her groove on with a bull in the first place.
King Minos of Crete had been having some issues with his brothers over the throne. Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a sign of approval, to prove to everyone that he should be king, instead of his brothers. Poseidon sent Minos a snow white bull, which emerged from the sea. This gesture proved to everyone that Minos had the approval of a god to be king, and secured his spot on the throne. Poseidon expected that Minos would sacrifice the white bull to him once he was king; however, King Minos found the beast so beautiful, he decided to keep it for himself, and instead, sacrificed one of his own finest bulls to Poseidon, (figuring it wouldn't be that big of a deal). Let's just say, it was that big of a deal--so in his anger Poseidon made Minos's wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the white bull.
Pasiphae was so enamored by the bull, that she decided she wanted to get it on with him. Knowing she couldn't get the bull to go there with her, in her human form, she had an architect by the name of Daedalus, construct a wooden cow to fool the bull. Pasiphae got into the fake cow, where it was wheeled into the field where the bull was grazing. The bull being unable to tell the cow was fake, mated with Pasiphae. The offspring that was produced between them the Minotaur.
Pasiphae was able to take care of her offspring while he was an infant, but as he grew, he became ferocious, and had a taste for human flesh. King Minos had the same architect who constructed the cow, to build a labyrinth to house the beast. Every nine years, (or in some accounts, every year), seven young men and seven maidens from Athens were sent to the labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur. This arrangement was in place due to the death of Minos's son, Androgeos. Different versions of the story, all blame some Athenian for the death. To avoid the wrath of King Minos, the Athenian king, Aegeus, reluctantly agreed to this arrangement.
This slaughter of 14 Athenian youths went on for a number of years, until Theseus, son of King Aegeus, volunteered to be one of the young men sent to the Labyrinth as a tribute. The goal of Theseus was to enter the Labyrinth and kill the Minotaur once and for all, thus ending the slaughter of his people. With the help of Minos's daughter Ariadne, Theseus is able to find his way back out of the maze, after killing the Minotaur, (Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, and doesn't want her half brother, the Minotaur to kill him--so she gives Theseus a ball of string, so that he can find his way back out). Theseus kills the minotaur, (in some accounts by stabbing him with King Aegeus's sword, in other accounts, by beating it to death while it slept).
The rest of the tale really has nothing to do with the Minotaur, but is interesting none-the-less, and definitely worth a read. Of course, this is all just mythology, but I felt kind of bad for the Minotaur. He didn't bring himself into the world, and it's not his fault that a god put a spell on his mom, making her fall in love with a bull. It's not even his fault he became ferocious and could only had a taste for humans. He was a bull/human combo for goodness sake, a literal monster--what else could you expect? And then to be locked away in a labyrinth, all by himself...poor thing. Now I'm not saying I don't understand why he had to be locked away, but he just kind of got a bum deal to me. It would have been more merciful to have simply destroyed him at birth, and they could have avoided all the suffering that followed; but hey, if they killed him from the beginning, that wouldn't have made for a very good story. And thank goodness it's just a story.
At any rate, this was the last of our Mythical Beasts series. That's it for now. I'll hit you guys back on Thursday regarding commonly affected animals of the fur trade.
Enjoy the rest of your Memorial Day! And thank you to all the service men and women who put their lives on the line for our freedom.
Until next time,
This is your host J,
signing off...
I know a lot of you have fired up the grill, made some cool, refreshing beverages, and may even have some fireworks on deck for tonight. If so, enjoy your festivities and remember to keep your pets safe and out of harm's way. With that being said, it's the last Monday in May, which means today is our last Mythical Monday post. I may decide to bring some more mythical beasts back out in October, for our October Pet Spooktacular, month-long shows and blog posts--or I might opt to keep this as something special for May, (we'll see).
Today's Mythical Beast is the Minotaur. This creature always fascinated me when I was kid, when I went through a phase of being obsessed with Greek Mythology. The only issue was, I was getting this creature and the Centaur confused; so I guess it would be more accurate to say that I was fascinated by both the Minotaur and the Centaur, interchangeably. But let's clear up the confusion between the two before we proceed.
The Centaur is a creature who had the head, arms, chest, (the upper torso), of a man, while the bottom half of its body was that of a horse. There was more than one Centaur. There was sort of like a race of them.
The Minotaur is a mythological creature having the head of a bull and the body of a man. There was only one of him. How the Minotaur came to be, however is more than a little bit freaky. Okay so here's the break down, The Minotaur is the offspring of a human mother and a snow white bull. Yeah, I know, but let me give you the back story of why this woman wanted to get her groove on with a bull in the first place.
King Minos of Crete had been having some issues with his brothers over the throne. Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a sign of approval, to prove to everyone that he should be king, instead of his brothers. Poseidon sent Minos a snow white bull, which emerged from the sea. This gesture proved to everyone that Minos had the approval of a god to be king, and secured his spot on the throne. Poseidon expected that Minos would sacrifice the white bull to him once he was king; however, King Minos found the beast so beautiful, he decided to keep it for himself, and instead, sacrificed one of his own finest bulls to Poseidon, (figuring it wouldn't be that big of a deal). Let's just say, it was that big of a deal--so in his anger Poseidon made Minos's wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the white bull.
Pasiphae was so enamored by the bull, that she decided she wanted to get it on with him. Knowing she couldn't get the bull to go there with her, in her human form, she had an architect by the name of Daedalus, construct a wooden cow to fool the bull. Pasiphae got into the fake cow, where it was wheeled into the field where the bull was grazing. The bull being unable to tell the cow was fake, mated with Pasiphae. The offspring that was produced between them the Minotaur.
Pasiphae was able to take care of her offspring while he was an infant, but as he grew, he became ferocious, and had a taste for human flesh. King Minos had the same architect who constructed the cow, to build a labyrinth to house the beast. Every nine years, (or in some accounts, every year), seven young men and seven maidens from Athens were sent to the labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur. This arrangement was in place due to the death of Minos's son, Androgeos. Different versions of the story, all blame some Athenian for the death. To avoid the wrath of King Minos, the Athenian king, Aegeus, reluctantly agreed to this arrangement.
This slaughter of 14 Athenian youths went on for a number of years, until Theseus, son of King Aegeus, volunteered to be one of the young men sent to the Labyrinth as a tribute. The goal of Theseus was to enter the Labyrinth and kill the Minotaur once and for all, thus ending the slaughter of his people. With the help of Minos's daughter Ariadne, Theseus is able to find his way back out of the maze, after killing the Minotaur, (Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, and doesn't want her half brother, the Minotaur to kill him--so she gives Theseus a ball of string, so that he can find his way back out). Theseus kills the minotaur, (in some accounts by stabbing him with King Aegeus's sword, in other accounts, by beating it to death while it slept).
The rest of the tale really has nothing to do with the Minotaur, but is interesting none-the-less, and definitely worth a read. Of course, this is all just mythology, but I felt kind of bad for the Minotaur. He didn't bring himself into the world, and it's not his fault that a god put a spell on his mom, making her fall in love with a bull. It's not even his fault he became ferocious and could only had a taste for humans. He was a bull/human combo for goodness sake, a literal monster--what else could you expect? And then to be locked away in a labyrinth, all by himself...poor thing. Now I'm not saying I don't understand why he had to be locked away, but he just kind of got a bum deal to me. It would have been more merciful to have simply destroyed him at birth, and they could have avoided all the suffering that followed; but hey, if they killed him from the beginning, that wouldn't have made for a very good story. And thank goodness it's just a story.
At any rate, this was the last of our Mythical Beasts series. That's it for now. I'll hit you guys back on Thursday regarding commonly affected animals of the fur trade.
Enjoy the rest of your Memorial Day! And thank you to all the service men and women who put their lives on the line for our freedom.
Until next time,
This is your host J,
signing off...
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