The Minotaur bull was a story mentioned in manuscripts related to Greek mythology.
Simply put, Minos, the king of Crete, went to Poseidon and said that there were no creatures in his realm worthy of the sea god. He asked Poseidon to display a miracle, promising to offer up whatever emerged from the depths of the sea.
—This seemed rather baffling. It went beyond borrowing flowers to offer to Buddha; he wanted to cook the original soup with the original ingredients and get it all for free.
But the underlying logic of the story was that Minos had come to power illegitimately, having usurped the throne. He longed to use a miracle to prove his legitimacy and secure his royal authority.
Poseidon heard his request and raised a magnificent white bull from the sea for Minos. Yet upon seeing the white bull, Minos could not bear to kill such a beautiful creature. He slaughtered an ordinary bull instead and offered it as a sacrifice, hoping to fool the god.
Poseidon, having been taken advantage of, was furious. He cursed Minos's wife, Pasiphae, causing her to fall in love with the bull. In the end, she bore a monster with a bull's head and a human body: the Minotaur.
As the royal family's shameful secret, Minos did not want anyone discovering the Minotaur's existence. He ordered Daedalus to construct a winding labyrinth so complex that even its creator would struggle to escape it, then imprisoned the Minotaur bull within.
The latter half of the legend also mentioned a war between Crete and Athens. Athens lost and was required to surrender children as sacrifices, sending them into the labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur. Then Theseus, the illegitimate son of Athens's king, voluntarily entered the labyrinth and slew the Minotaur, and