tHE MYTH OF ICARUS AND dAEDALUS
The myth of Icarus and Daedalus starts with the fact that every year Athens had to send 14 young people into the Labyrinth as sacrifices to the Minotaur that lived there. As a result of this Theseus volunteered to go into the Labyrinth as one of the sacrifices. Just before he left the daughter of King Minos fell in love with him and she decided that he should not die and she asked Daedalus to make him something that would help him find his way out of the maze. He created a giant ball of string and told him to tie it to the door of the maze and to take it with him through the maze in order to give himself a way to find his way out. With the help of the string Theseus made it to the Minotaur, killed it and found his way back out of the maze. When word of this got to King Minos he was furious and he decided to throw Daedalus into the Labyrinth with Icarus. The maze however was no problem to them because they knew all of it's secrets and they quickly made their way out. Their next problem came from the fact that they could not escape the island by sea because Minos controlled all of the sea around them. As a result of this the great inventor Daedalus decided that he needed to find a new way off of the island so he decided to make wings out of materials around the island to let them fly away from the island to freedom. They decided to make them out of thousands of feathers and some very strong wax. After the production Daedalus then explained to Icarus that they needed to fly above the water without touching it and weighing down the feathers and also fly low enough so that the wax that held the wings together did not melt and release any of the essential feathers. Icarus however did not head this warning and when they began to fly he was so amazed by it that he soared into the sky where his wings slowly lost feathers until he eventually plummeted to his death in the sea. Daedalus however stayed at the correct height and flew all the way to Sicily where he never forgot the cry of his son as he fell to the water.