According to legend, the labyrinth at Knossos in Crete was the residence of the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull. How he got to live there and what he found to eat every day is not recorded but he must have struggled to get by. According to the Athenian version of the story, we learn that the sad creature only ate once every nine years when his master, King Minos, demanded that the Greek King Aegeus sacrifice seven young Greek men and seven young Greek maidens. The idea was that after being forced into the labyrinth they would become hopelessly lost, and being too weary to offer resistance they would eventually be devoured by the desperate hybrid. Dieticians will note that, apart from long periods of starvation, such a gluttonous intake of saturated fat would not have been beneficial to its cholesterol level.

The Minotaur was eventually killed by King Aegeus's son, Theseus, who volunteered to enter the labyrinth with evil in mind. King Minos's daughter Ariadne, who was clearly no animal lover, fell in love with Theseus at first sight and gave him a sword to kill the Minotaur and a ball of thread to extricate himself from the labyrinth. What the Minotaur had done to deserve this ignoble end is unclear but surely a few hearty steaks served on a regular basis would have cured the beast of its misanthropy.

Unfortunately, a couple of defects occur in the legend. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth does not have alternative paths to take, being instead one continuous route, so why Theseus needed a thread to navigate his way out is unclear. It's also a mystery how any creature living on one meal every nine years could summon the strength to take out its prey, so while the Minotaur was half man and half bull, it is likely that the story itself is complete bull. Nevertheless, it's an interesting introduction to this week's puzzle which is all about path finding.

Starting at position A can you trace a path through the maze to position B?

A hint will be given in the Comments section below on Wednesday and the solution will appear next Sunday

Last Week's Puzzle

To solve The Rough Graph Puzzle, a quarter turn of the picture clockwise reveals a dog. So the lower left point has a letter D which also represents its ear! The reader is invited to speculate what the G represents but it could be a curved arrow that indicates the direction of airflow out of the dog's nose!  Congratulations to Sharon from Adline Publications for being the first one to tell us the answer!