After Asterius, the king of Crete died, his adopted son Minos claimed the Cretan throne and, in proof of his right to reign, boasted that the gods would answer whatever prayer he offered them. First dedicating an altar to Posiden, and making all preparations for a sacrifice, he then prayed that a bull might emerge from the sea. At once, a dazzlingly white bull swam ashore, but Minos was so struck by its beauty that he sent it to join his own herds, and slaughtered another instead.

Posiden, to avenge the affront offered to him by Minos, made Minos's wife Pasiphae fall in love with the white bull. She confided her unnatural passion to Daedelus, the famous craftsman. Daedelus promised to help her, and built a hollow wooden cow, which he upholstered with a cow's hide, set on wheels concealed in its hooves, and pushed into the meadow where Posiden's bull was grazing under the oaks with Minos's cows. Then, having shown Pasiphae how to open the folding doors in the cow's back, and slip inside with her legs thrust down into its hindquarters, he discreetly retired. Soon the white bull ambled up and mounted the cow, so that Pasiphae had all her desire, and later gave birth to the Minotaur, a monster with a bull's head and a human body.

Minos consulted an oracle to know how he might best avoid scandal and conceal Pasiphae's disgrace. The response was: "Instruct Daedelus to build you a retreat at Cnossus!" This Daedelus did, and Minos spent the remainder of his life in the inextricable maze called the Labyrinth, at the very heart of which he concealed Pasiphae and the Minotaur.