Daedalus was a highly respected and talented Athenian artisan, descendant from the royal family of Cecrops, the mythical first king of Athens. He was known for his skill as an architect, sculptor and inventor, and he produced many famous works. Despite his self-confidence, Daedalus once committed a crime of envy against Talus, his nephew and apprentice. Talus, who seemed destined to become as great an artisan as his uncle Daedalus, was inspired one day to invent the saw after having seen the way a snake used its jaws. Daedalus momentarily stricken with jealousy threw Talus off the Acropolis. For this crime Daedalus was exiled to Crete and placed in the service of King Minos, where he eventually had a son, Icarus, with the beautiful Naucrate, a mistress-slave of the King..

Minos called on Daedalus to build the famous Labyrinth in order to imprison the dreaded Minotaur. The Minotaur was a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. He was son of Pasiphae the wife of Minos, and a bull that Poseidon had sent to Minos as a gift. Minos was shamed by the birth of this horrible creature and resolve to imprison the Minotaur in the Labyrinth where it fed on humans, which were taken as 'tribute' by Minos and sacrificed to the Minotaur in memory of his fallen son Androgenos.

Daedalus conceived a way to escape from the Labyrinth with Icarus, by constructing wings and then flying from Crete to safety. He built the wings from feathers and wax, and before the two set off he warned Icarus not to fly too low lest his wings touch the waves and get wet, and not too high lest the sun melt the wax. But the young Icarus overwhelmed by the thrill of flying, did not heed his father's warning, and flew too close to the sun whereupon the wax in his wings melted and he felt into the sea. Daedalus escaped to Sicily and Icarus' body was carried ashore by the current to an island, which is now the Ikaria Island.