Europa

On the distant shores of Phoenicia, the king had a beautiful daughter as well as several sons.  The daughter, named Europa, was the light of all who looked upon her, and was especially treasured by her brother, Cadmos, who devoted himself to protecting her from unwelcome suitors.

Little did Cadmos know that Europa had another admirer, far different — and more powerful! — than the suitors he was used to fending off!

Europa’s most devoted suitor, married though he was, could one day wait no longer to make her his own, and decided to set about getting her safely separated from her family.  It would have been a tricky task for any man, but he had no difficulty arranging it…

Europa was playing in the fields with some of her friends when a beautiful bull walked out of the sea and approached them.  Her friends were frightened by the animal, but Europa noticed something sparkling on his horns, and went to investigate.  It was an elegant necklace, crafted too perfectly to have been made by any mortal.  As her fingers grazed the necklace, she was filled with a desire to own it, but it had been tied to the bull’s horn, and Europa couldn’t simply remove it.

The more she tried to untie the necklace, the more it seemed to cling to the bull’s horn, as if it had a mind of its own.  Eventually, Europa decided that she needed a better angle to see what she was doing, and so she climbed up onto the bull’s back.  As soon as she had done so, the bull turned around and began wading back out to sea, with the girl clinging to his back in confused alarm.  Her friends set off running back to the palace to fetch her brother, but by the time he arrived at the shore, Europa and the bull had long since vanished from sight.