‘Father!’ he shouted before falling with a heavy splash into the sea. With every desperate swoop of his arms, more feathers fell and soon his arms were almost bare. Too late Icarus realized his wings were melting. At the same time he noticed a feather drift past and float downwards towards the sea. He had flown so high his father resembled a small dot below him. He felt like a bird! Higher and higher, faster and faster he flew! Suddenly, Icarus realized he could hardly see his father. It was as though his body was weightless. He shuffled impatiently as his father attached the wings to his arms, then helped his father to position his own wings.īelow, his heart fluttered with excitement. And now at last they had the chance to escape. He had spent weeks doing nothing more exciting with his days than collecting feathers and catching fish for his father and himself to eat. Hiding on the shore of the island of Crete had been boring. If you do, the wax that holds the feathers together will melt.’ Icarus nodded quickly. Make sure you do not fly too close to the Sun. ‘With these wings you will fly like a bird,’ Daedalus told his son, ‘but be careful. At last, six weeks after they had escaped from the labyrinth, the wings were ready. He worked carefully to build the wings, studying the exact angle and shape of the seagulls and examining how the birds flew. Daedalus instructed his son to collect as many as he could find. Scattered around the beach were seagull feathers. He would build a pair of wings! It would take some time, days, weeks even, but he would build a pair of wings for his son and himself –ĭaedulus and Icarus exactly the same as the wings of a seagull but on a much larger scale. If only he and his son could just fly away … and then he had an idea which was both brilliant and ambitious. Daedalus stared up at the sky and the seagulls that circled overhead. They could not leave by ship all vessels were controlled by King Minos. But who would want to live like that – hiding away hoping they would not be captured? They needed to find a way to leave the island, but how? They could not swim, the nearest land was too far away, and they would never make it. They could possibly survive for months or years without being seen. The trees and bushes surrounding the beach would provide an ideal sanctuary for the time being. Once out of the labyrinth Deadulus and Icarus carefully made their way to the shore of the island and pondered on what to do next. © Karen Moncrieffe and Brilliant Publications 2012 This page may be photocopied for use by the purchasing institution only. After all, Daedalus had built the labyrinth and knew his way around! Instead, unknown to the king, they escaped. The King expected that the inventor and his son would be found by the Minotaur and eaten. Now he had the perfect punishment for his enemies! Deciding he had no further use for Daedalus, the King threw him into the labyrinth along with his son Icarus. Anyone who was sent to the labyrinth would be trapped and eventually they would be found by the Minotaur who would eat them alive. Once the Minotaur was in the labyrinth the creature was unable to escape. Daedalus did as King Minos requested and then, following the King’s instructions, he enticed the Minotaur into the labyrinth by leaving a huge pile of fresh meat in its centre. He enlisted the help of Daedalus, a talented architect, inventor and craftsman, and asked him to build a labyrinth – a maze of passages that would be so complex that it would be virtually impossible for anyone (or anything) to ever find a way out. To die at the hands of the Minotaur would be one of the most terrible deaths imaginable, and King Minos believed that his enemies deserved to meet such a fate. Instead, he constructed a plan to imprison the Minotaur. They begged their ruler, King Minos, to order that the creature be killed, but the King decided against this. The people of the island of Crete were terrified of the Minotaur it loved nothing more than to feast on human flesh. Daedalus and Icarus On the island of Crete there lived a Minotaur, a ferocious creature that was half man and half bull.
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