Ariadne... NOT Arachne

Ariadne is actually my "pen" name. Although my real name is pretty interesting too. Anyways, Ariadne was a princess in Greek mythology. Here are my awful versions of the stories of the Minotaur, and the story of Arachne.

The Minotaur
It all started when The King of Crete's wife got on the wrong side of the god Posideon. She didn't sacrifice a cow he sent to them or something. Anyway, Posideon cursed her, and she had a child. The Minotaur, which was half-man, half-bull, and had a nasty hankering for human flesh. The King of Crete, Minos, for some strange reason, felt like keeping the monster. He had his architect, Daedalus, build an impossible maze for the beast, the Labyrinth. Crete somehow managed to threatened Athens into sending seven young men and seven young maidens every seven years to be sacrificed to the Minotaur.

Theseus, a young prince of Athens, took a place of one of the other young men, planning to kill the Minotaur. His father, the king of Athens, was distraught, and made Theseus promise to change the ship's black sails to white if he returned safely.

When Theseus arrived, he immediately caught the eye of the Princess Ariadne, who fell in love with him. Not wanting such good looks to go to waste, she asked Daedalus to help Theseus defeat the Minotaur and escape the impossible Labyrinth safely. He gave her a magic string to help Theseus navigate the maze. The night before they were to be sacrificed, Ariadne led Theseus to the Labyrinth. He tied the string to the doorway and followed the thread into the heart of the Labyrinth, where he slew the Minotaur. He then quickly escaped the maze, grabbed his fellow Athenians and the girl, and they sailed off.

Well, as it so happens, Theseus was a jerk and didn't even like Ariadne. On the way home he dumped the sleeping princess on a deserted island and sailed off. I guess he got his just deserts in the end; he forgot to switch his black sails for white and his ole' dad committed suicide when he saw the black sails coming in.

Ariadne had it a bit better off. Turns out the god of wine, Dionysus, fell in love with her. Unlike many of the Greek myths, where the gods spend a night a princess and leave her to raise a demigod baby; Dionysus actually married Ariadne. She lived with him in Olympus, lived a long, happy life, and had several children. When she died, Dionysus either took her back from Hades or made her a constellation, depending on what version of the myth you read.

Plus, she has a really cool name.



"Ariadne" is not to be confused with "Arachne", as my father did.

Arachne
As the story goes, Arachne was a famous weaver, one of the best weavers in the land. She had the audacity to proclaim that she was better at it than Athena, the goddess of arts and crafts (and wisdom). Athena was a bit pissed-off, but being a nice lady, decided to give Arachne a break. She took on the guise of an old lady and warned Arachne to be careful and to not offend the gods. Arachne rudely said she wished she could have a weaving contest with the goddess to prove her point. Athena revealed herself and let Arachne have her contest.

At the end, Athena admitted that Arachne's weaving was flawless, but was horribly offended at her subject matter. Arachne had woven all pictures of the gods committing infidelity and such with mortals. Athena cursed Arachne and turned her into a spider.

And now "Arachnid" is a word for "spider" today. Isn't that neat?