In ancient Greek stories, the Minotaur was a creature that was half man and half bull (a male cow). King Minos of Crete kept it in a labyrinth — a maze of paths that is hard to leave — and young men and women were sent in for it to eat. The hero Theseus killed it. Though actually, the “half and half” picture is a bit tidier than the old art: vase paintings usually give it a man's body and a bull's head, not a neat line across the waist. The story is myth, not history. People later tied it in their minds to the palace at Knossos, whose many rooms felt like a maze. There is one Minotaur in the old tale, not a whole species of maze-monsters.