The Legend of Daedalus

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OUR VERSION --39th Flight Eagle: August 1996

The following is an interesting, if not totally factual account of how our organization became known as Daedalians.

One wonders how a collection of WW I aviators settled on the name "Daedalians" for their Order, Since there were then probably no more classical scholars in their midst than in our group today. They got the name from a history professor uncle of one of the founding committee members. He told them that Daedalus was the first legendary character to accomplish aerial flight and the name "Order of Daedalians" would be appropriate and have a quality ring to it.

You, of course, are familiar with the legend from Greek mythology: How the Athenian contractors Daedalus & Son won low bid on a government construction job for King Minos of Crete. The King wanted a building with "numberless winding passages and turnings opening into one another so that whoever was enclosed in it could be no means find his way out unassisted." Sort of any early Pentagon. The contractors incurred the wrath of OMB and the Congress with cost overruns and delays, and imprisoned in a tower pending full investigation. Daedalus contrived to escape by fashioning wings of feathers, thread, and wax for himself and Icarus, his son. He told the boy not to fly too near the sun or the wings would melt, but Icarus did not listen to his Dad. He flew near the sun, the wings of course melted and "down he dived, spouting flames from under". He augured into the sea on the 225-degree radial at the 65 NM DME from Izmir, Turkey. Daedalus recovered the body and buried it on the nearest island, which still bears the name Icaria. He then flew to Sicily where he mounted his wings on the wall of a local watering hole, thus creating the first Daedalian room.


THE   ACTUAL LEGEND

Daedalus was a renowned craftsman and inventor. Before his time statues had their arms fixed stiffly to their sides - Daedalus gave them naturalistic poses and, some say, the power of movement. Daedalus claimed to have invented the saw, but credit instead went to his nephew, whom Daedalus consequently murdered in a fit of professional jealousy. Because of this homicide, he fled his native Athens for the court of King Minos on the island of Crete.

King Minos was a notorious ingrate. One day when his son Glaucus turned up missing, he sought the aid of the seer Polyeidus, hoping to draw on the latter's powers of prophesy and inner vision. Polyeidus was the same seer who had advised Bellerophon on how to tame the flying horse Pegasus. True to his reputation, he soon found the boy, smothered headfirst in a huge jar of honey. In thanks for this service, Minos locked Polyeidus in a room with the dead boy, telling him that he would be released when he had returned Glaucus to life.

Polyeidus, a visionary not a magician, had not an inkling what to do, until a snake crawled into the room and died. Its mate slithered away and returned moments later with an herb which it rubbed on the body. The first snake was brought back to life. Polyeidus applied the same herb to Glaucus and it did the trick. Reasonably expecting thanks and a reward, he was stunned to be told by Minos that he could not even go home again until he had taught Glaucus all his mystical powers. Resignedly, this he did. In the end, with his freedom in sight, he bid King Minos farewell. "One last thing," he said to young Glaucus. "Spit into my mouth."

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With distaste can only be imagined, Glaucus did as instructed - and instantly forgot everything he had been taught. King Minos behaved with similar ingratitude to Daedalus. In return for numerous services, notably the building of the Labyrinth, Minos had Daedalus imprisoned, either in his workroom or in the Labyrinth itself. Admittedly, Daedalus had been compelled to design the Labyrinth in the first place owing to an indiscretion on his part. Minos's queen, Pasiphae, had fallen in love with a bull - through no fault of her own but in consequence of divine vengeance on Minos for - you guessed it - ingratitude to the gods. To help the queen, Daedalus fashioned a lifelike hollow cow inside which Pasiphae could approach the bull. As a result, she gave birth to the Minotaur, half-man, half-bull.

Daedalus invented the Labyrinth in order to confine the Minotaur and, some say, Pasiphae and her accomplice. However, there was no cooping up a genius like Daedalus. Having been locked up in his own architectural masterpiece, the great inventor knew better than to attempt the portal. Naturally, Minos had placed this under heavy guard, knowing that if anyone could negotiate the twisting passages to the exit it was the creator of the Labyrinth himself. Therefore, Daedalus gave thought to other means of escape.

Minos had been kind enough to provide him with a room with a view, looking out over the Cretan landscape, which lay many stories below. The king was quite confident that his prisoner would not be leaping to his freedom. What he had overlooked was the probability that the caged bird might fly. Indeed, Daedalus might well have been inspired by the soaring flight of the birds outside his window. It is certain that there were in fact birds in the vicinity because Daedalus managed to possess himself of a goodly supply of feathers. Like the great Leonardo da Vinci many centuries yet in the future, he sketched out on his drafting table a wing-like framework to which these feathers would be applied. Building a wooden lattice in the shape of an outsized wing and covering it with the feathers, he set to testing his prototype.

It must have created quite a stir in the dank passages of the Labyrinth when Daedalus began waving this monumental feather duster around. The trials were important, though, for the ultimate invention would be freighted with the risk not just of his own life but that of his son Icarus as well. For Minos had wickedly imprisoned the guiltless boy together with his father.

At last, the day was at hand to take to the skies. As he attached one pair of wings to Icarus and another to himself, Daedalus cautioned his son repeatedly. "Remember all the trouble I had getting these feathers to stick?" he said for the sixth or seventh time. "The binding agent I resorted to is unstable," he pointed out as Icarus fidgeted impatiently. "I had to heat it to make it work. If it gets heated again by the sun, it will give way and the feathers will come loose. Do you understand, boy?" To judge by Icarus's expression, he felt his father was belaboring the point. As it turned out, he might have given his old dad more credit for a caution worth repeating. For as soon as they had leapt from the windowsill and caught an updraft which bore them high into the sky about Mount Juktas, Icarus became giddy with exhilaration. Now he knew what a falcon felt like, dipping and soaring at will. Perhaps with some notion of going down in the annals of aviation with the first high-altitude record, he started flapping vigorously. As he climbed into the thinner air aloft, the proximity of the sun began to work as Daedalus had anticipated. The feathers came loose, and Icarus plunged headlong into the sea, which - scant consolation - henceforth bore his name.


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