Daedalus was the greatest inventor and craftsman of Greek myth: architect, sculptor, engineer. His name became a byword for ingenuity, and daedal means intricately made. His story is bound up with that of his son Icarus.
From Athens to Crete
Daedalus lived in Athens but was jealous of his nephew and pupil Talos (or Perdix), who had invented the saw by studying a fish's spine, and the compass. In a fit of envy he pushed him off the Acropolis; Athena saved the boy by turning him into a partridge. Exiled, Daedalus took refuge on Crete at the court of King Minos, for whom he built the labyrinth where the Minotaur was kept.
The prison and the wings
When Minos found out Daedalus had helped Theseus and Ariadne, he locked him in the labyrinth, or a tower, with his son Icarus. Sea and land were guarded, but not the sky: Daedalus gathered birds' feathers and bound them with thread and wax, making two pairs of wings. Before leaving he warned his son: "Fly halfway: if you go too low, the sea's damp will weigh down the feathers; if you go too high, the sun will melt the wax."
The flight of Icarus
Father and son took off, and the fishermen and shepherds who saw them pass took them for gods. But Icarus, drunk with the joy of flying, forgot his father's advice and climbed higher and higher towards the sun. The wax melted, the feathers came loose and the boy plunged into the sea. Daedalus, heartbroken, found the body and buried it on an island named Ikaria after him; the surrounding sea is still called the Icarian Sea. See the island of Ikaria.
Daedalus in Sicily
Daedalus reached Sicily, the court of King Cocalus. Minos searched everywhere with a trick: he offered a prize to anyone who could pass a thread through a spiral shell. Only Daedalus could solve it: he tied the thread to an ant and let it crawl through the shell. When Cocalus presented the solution, Minos knew Daedalus was there, but the Sicilian king's daughters killed him in his bath.
See also Theseus and metamorphoses.