Mortals
Icarus
IK-uh-rus
Given wings and one instruction, and remembered forever for ignoring it.
Icarus is the son of Daedalus, the craftsman who built the Labyrinth for King Minos. Having built it, Daedalus knew too much, and Minos imprisoned both father and son to keep the secret — in the maze itself, in most versions.
Daedalus solved it the only way left. Minos controlled the land and the sea, but not the air. He gathered feathers, graded them by size, and bound them with thread and wax into two pairs of wings, curved like a real bird's.
The instruction was about the middle. Fly too low and sea spray will waterlog the feathers; fly too high and the sun will soften the wax. Ovid gives Daedalus fitting the wings to his son's shoulders with his hands shaking, and kissing him, not knowing it is the last time — the detail that turns a fable into something harder to read.
They got away. Fishermen and shepherds looked up and took them for gods. Then Icarus, exhilarated, climbed. The wax gave, the feathers came loose, and he beat bare arms against nothing before falling into the sea that is still called Icarian after him. Daedalus, circling, could see only feathers on the water.
The moral is usually given as a warning against ambition, which is only half of what Ovid wrote. The instruction was not 'do not fly high' — it was 'fly the middle course', and the sea was as fatal as the sun. Icarus is remembered for excess, but the myth is actually about the narrowness of the safe path.
Gods involved
Icarus: common questions
Why did Icarus fall?
He flew too near the sun, and the wax holding his feathers melted. His father had warned him to keep to a middle course — too low risked sea spray soaking the wings, too high risked the wax.
Who made the wings?
Daedalus, his father, the craftsman who had built the Labyrinth. Minos controlled land and sea, so the only escape route left was the air.
Which god is your parent?
Twelve questions and the campfire decides.