In his bid for King of Crete, Minos decreed that the crown had been ordained to him by the Gods. As proof he said that anything he wished for would come true. He prayed to Poseidon for a bull to appear from the sea (go figure).  He promised that upon its appearance the bull would sacrificed back to Poseidon. But Minos, the not so sly, decided he would keep the bull and sacrifice another. Bad mooo-ve.

The big bountiful bull was sent into Minos’ herd whereupon Poseidon became boiling mad. He caused the monster to go berserk and ravage the kingdom. The poor denizens of Crete suffered the rampages of the Cretan Bull and only found relief when the mighty Hercules vanquished it as one of his labours. Minos’ punishment was made worse by Poseidon when he cursed Pasiphae, his wife, to fall in love with with the grand bull.

Obsessed with lust she commissioned a model of a seductive cow to be built and positioned herself inside the bogus bovine as she awaited the bull’s attentions in the field where it grazed.

The upshot was that a wild bellowing son with the head of a bull and body of a man was conceived. He lived, confined in the Labyrinth where young men and women were sacrificed to him until the hero Theseus slew him.