Minotaur (Myths and Legends)

The Minotaur is a vicious half-bull monster in Greek myth. He appears in the Disney's Animated Myths and Legends episode Theseus and the Minotaur, which aired on January 2, 1998-as well as a cameo in Daedalus and Icarus-in which he is voiced by Clancy Brown.

Biography
The Minotaur's origin closely follows that of the myth. King Minos received a pure white bull as a gift from Poseidon, which he was later instructed to sacrifice. Minos, however, was unwilling to withdraw this gift from the gods and sacrificed one of his own. The king's wife, Pasiphaë, however, fell in love with the bull and the end product was the Minotaur. Pasiphaë nursed the monster, but as he grew, he developed an unquenchable appetite for human flesh, Minos later had the inventor Daedalus construct a giant maze called the Labyrinth, in which the monster was held, for the safety of himself and his people.

Later, when Minos' son was killed in Athens, the grieving would have waged war on the Athenians had he not delivered an alternate proposal; every seven years, his soldiers would sail to Athens to retrieve seven young men and women and take them back to Crete, where they would be imprisoned in the Labyrinth and subsequently slaughtered by the Minotaur. The hero Theseus, who was the son of Minos' longstanding rival King Aegeus, would later battle and successfully kill the monster.

Appearance and personality
The Minotaur is a towering humanoid monster. He has the head, tail and hindquarters of a bull and sports a simple green loincloth round his waist. The Minotaur's teeth, however, are more akin to those of a predator like a lion than a bull. His torso is that of a muscular man and the fingers on his hands-soaked in the blood of previous victims-end in razor sharp claws. The Minotaur is a violent, bloodthirsty individual. He lacks any thought for his many victims and is only driven by the instinct to kill.