Theseus and the Minotaur KS2

Theseus and the Mintaur is one of the most well-known of the ancient Greek myths. It's an epic tale of a terrifying monster and a cruel king, who come up against Prince Theseus and Princess Ariadne, whose bravery frees the Athenian people.

The Story of Theseus and the Minotaur

King Minos was a powerful ruler on the island of Crete. He had a wife called Pasiphae. One day, King Minos made the god Poseidon angry as Minos would not sacrifice a white bull to him. 

Poseidon decided to make Pasiphae fall in love with a bull to teach Minos a lesson. When Pasiphae gave birth, it was to a baby who was half-man and half-bull. King Minos was horrified but didn’t want to kill the creature. Instead he placed the Minotaur in a complicated labyrinth so that the Minotaur would never be able to find its way out. 

Every nine years, King Minos ordered the king of Athens, King Aegeus, to send seven boys and seven girls to Crete to be eaten by the Minotaur. He threatened that if he didn’t send the children, his army would destroy all of Athens. King Aegeus had no choice, so every nine years he sent the children on a boat to Crete. Everyone knew they would never return.  

In Crete, the children were sent into the labyrinth, and one by one they would be captured and eaten by the Minotaur as they ran around trying to find their way out of the maze. 

King Aegeus had a young son called Theseus. Theseus always wondered why every nine years his father looked so sad and begged him to explain why. When he found out about the children being sent to the Minotaur he was outraged. He decided that when the next boys and girls were sent he would go as one of the boys and defeat the Minotaur once and for all. 

This is exactly what he did. When he arrived in Crete, he and the other children were given a banquet to honour the sacrifice they were making for their country. King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, was there. She instantly fell in love with Theseus. He told her of his plan to defeat the Minotaur and she said she would help him if he took her back to Athens with him.

Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of silk thread. She told him to lay the thread behind him as he walked through the maze so that he would be able to find his way out again. Theseus did as she said and sure enough he soon came face to face with the Minotaur. The Minotaur lunged towards him but Theseus managed to plunge his sword into the Minotaur’s heart and kill him. 

Theseus followed the thread out to the door of the labyrinth. He took Ariadne back to the ship and they set sail for Athens. 

King Aegeus had told his son that if he had been successful he must change the sails on the ship from black to white so that as he saw the returning ships, he would know whether his son had been successful. However, Dionysus had appeared to Theseus in a dream and told him not to marry Ariadne because she had already been chosen as the wife of another. Dionysus told him to leave Ariadne on an island so that he could collect her and take her to her husband. Theseus was so distraught at leaving Ariadne on the island that he forgot to change the sails from black to white. 

King Aegeus was keeping watch from his palace on top of a tall cliff, waiting for his only son to return home. When he saw the black sails he knew that his son hadn’t lived to defeat the Minotaur. He was so distraught that he jumped into the sea and died. The sea is still called the Aegean sea today.