We find many evidences, and evidences of many different kinds, of the sea-faring habits of the ancient Cretans, and of their great power. We find Minoan works of art in the tombs of Egyptian kings, and Egyptian ornaments in the Minoan palaces. We find, as I have said, the Minoan bronze work as far to the west as Sicily. Athens, the great Athens of Greece, seems to have been subject to the Minoans and to have paid tribute to them. And a very cruel form some of that tribute took. According to the old historians, they had to send seven maidens and seven youths each year to Crete; and we seem to be able to guess the purpose for which they were sent. {81} The legend is that they had to be sent each year to be devoured by, or be sacrificed to, a Cretan monster called the Minotaur. The name Minotaur is from Minos and tauros, meaning a bull. It was figured as a half human, half bull-like monster. [Sidenote: The Labyrinth] One of the most famous of the buildings discovered by the diggers in Crete is the Labyrinth, a building of an immense number of passages in which you were almost certain to lose your way if you did not know it. You would be lost, and never come back, and the Minotaur was supposed to live in this Labyrinth, and you would wander about there till he came upon you and killed you. [Illustration: COIN OF KNOSSOS (SHOWING LABYRINTH).] This legend of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth is particularly worth attending to because it shows us so well how the unreal stories grew up out of the real, and how we are sometimes able to find out the real truth under the unreal story. There was this real Labyrinth in Crete; and this tribute of seven maids and seven youths was, we may be tolerably sure, demanded of the Athenians. One or more of the drawings on the Minoan palace walls show bull-fights going on, and in the bull-ring are not only men, but also maidens, fighting the bull. One does not know whether all the Athenian maidens and youths were intended for this bull-fighting, but it is exceedingly likely that many of them were condemned to it, just as prisoners of war and others were made to fight lions in the amphitheatre at Rome. And out of this fact, of the maidens and youths in the bull-ring, might very easily grow the story of the Minotaur--the bull-monster of Minos--and his victim. {82} How Theseus slew the Minotaur and found his way out of the Labyrinth by a clue given him by Ariadne, the king's daughter, who had fallen in love with him, is all a further fancy that grew up out of the solid facts of the Labyrinth and the bull-fighting.