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The myth is set on the island of Crete, which in the Early History of Greece was very important. There are no direct references to the mythic creature in the works of Homer, but the monster is referred to in a fragment of a poem written by the poetess Sappho of Lesbos. The tale of the Minotaur begins with King Minos, the Cretan kingKing, who was the son of the King of the Gods Zeus and Europa. When his stepfather died, he made himself king King of Crete and its many dependent islands. His brother Sarapedon questioned the right of Minos to become kingKing.<ref> Grant, Michael, and John Hazel. Who's who in Classical Mythology (London, Routledge, 2004), p. 45</ref> He stated that it was the will of the Gods.

Minos proved that he was the rightful king King when Poseidon (the sea-god), sent him a white bull, from the sea, as a sign of his legitimacy. Now Minos was meant to sacrifice this beautiful white bull to show his gratitude to the sea-god , but he let it live because of its rarity and sacrificed a different and less valuable bull. The new king King married the goddess Pasiphae , and they had several children , and Crete prospered and grew stronger. Poseidon learned about the white bull , and he was enraged , and in revenge he caused the wife of Minos to fall in love with the beast.<ref>Calimachus, Hymn 4</ref> [[File: Minotaur Two.jpg|200px|thumbthumbnail|left|Theseus killing the Minotaur]]In the Roman version of the myth, Venus made the Cretan Queen, fall in love with the white bull. Pasiphae was infatuated fascinated with the animal , and she had the legendary craftsman Daedalus built her a wooden cow. When the queen of Minos was in the decoy cow, she was able to trick the bull into mating with her.  The offspring of this was Minotaur, who is described in the ancient texts, as a massive creature, with a strong human body and the head of a bull, complete with horns. His mother christened the child Asterion, but he became known as the Minotaur, which means ‘bull of Minos’Minos. ’ Naturally, when the Cretan heard about this he was angered and decided to hide the half-bull and half-human child.<ref> Grant and John, p. 115</ref> He enslaved Daedalus and ordered him to build a labyrinth or a maze to hold the animal. This is the first known reference to a labyrinthine structure . The hybrid could not escape from the maze , and no one could ever leave who entered it.  The maze was designed to be escape-proof, and those who entered it were doomed to wander it, endlessly until they died. It appears that the Minotaur would eat any human who came to the maze, and many unfortunates died in his labyrinth. In the myth, the Cretan King’s eldest son was killed by the bull that impregnated his mother at the Panathenaic Games. The monarch blamed the Athenians for this tragedy.  Minos demanded that every nine years that the Athenian King Aegeus send him seven young women and seven young males, if not, the city would be ravaged by a plague. <ref> Buxton, Richard, and Richard GA Buxton. Imaginary Greece: The contexts of mythology (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994), p 113</ref> Aegeus was forced to agree, and the young Athenians who were sent to Crete from Athens were sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Minotaur in his maze.