Daedalus and Icarus

Long ago, on the warm island of Crete in the middle of the blue sea, there lived a man named Daedalus. He was the most skilful craftsman in all the world. His hands could carve wood so that it seemed to breathe, and build machines that no one else could even dream of. The king of the island was named Minos, and he had called Daedalus there to build something very strange: a great labyrinth with so many passages and winding corridors that anyone who went in would never find a way out again. At Daedalus's side was always his son Icarus, a boy with curly hair and eyes as blue as the sea outside the window.

Daedalus worked on the labyrinth for a long time. He drew maps on parchment, he measured and counted, he had thousands of stones carried there and set in place. When it was finished, it was so winding that it resembled the river Maeander, which flows forward and backward on its way to the sea. King Minos was pleased and thanked Daedalus. But after a while the king grew angry with him over something that neither Icarus nor anyone else really understood. Minos commanded that Daedalus and his son be shut up in a high tower on the island. 'Here you shall stay,' said the king, 'and never again leave Crete.'

In the tower there was only one window, high above the sea. Icarus pressed his nose against the stone frame and looked down. Far below them the waves crashed against the cliffs, and white seagulls circled the boats in the harbor. 'Father,' he said, 'can't we take a boat and sail away?' Daedalus shook his head. 'The king watches every ship,' he said. 'His soldiers search every cargo before it is allowed to leave the island. That road is closed to us.' He sat down on a wooden bench and gazed for a long time out of the window. He watched the swallows skim past, and slowly a smile grew in his beard.

'Icarus,' said Daedalus at last, 'King Minos rules the land and the sea. But the air he does not rule. That is the road we shall try.' The boy did not quite understand what his father meant. But the next morning Daedalus began to gather feathers. He picked up every white down feather the wind had carried in through the window. He traded bread for feathers with the guard outside the door. He sent Icarus out onto the little terrace to hunt for seagull feathers between the stones. Soon they had a heap as big as a sleeping cat, soft and shimmering in the light of the window.