Minotaur (Myths and Legends)

The Minotaur is a monster in Greek myth. It appears in the Disney's Animated Myths and Legends episode Theseus and the Minotaur, which aired on January 2, 1998 (and also appeared in a cameo in Daedalus and Icarus) in which he is voiced by Clancy Brown.

Biography
Much like the mythological story, the Minotaur's origins started when King Minos, the ruler of Crete, witnessed the birth of a pure white bull. Every year, it was customary that he sacrifice one of his bulls to the sea god Poseidon. However, unwilling to part with this godsend, the king had a lesser animal sacrificed in its place, in an attempt to trick the sea god. Unfortunately for Minos, Poseidon took revenge by making Minos' wife fall in love with the bull; the Minotaur was the product of this unusual romance.

The queen nursed the Minotaur, but eventually he became too dangerous and with a lack of natural sustenance, he developed a taste for human flesh. Fearing for his safety and that of his subjects, Minos consulted the inventor Daedalus and asked him to build a giant, maze-like prison called the Labyrinth, in which the Minotaur would reside. Years later, the king's son-and the Minotaur's half brother-was killed while he was in Athens. Wracked with grief, Minos took revenge by placing an ultimatum: to prevent imminent war, fourteen young Athenians are to be sent to Crete and locked inside the Labyrinth, where they would be slaughtered by the Minotaur. The hero Theseus, son of Minos' rival King Aegeus, would later fight and kill the beast.