Minotaurs

"My great literacy began with Greek mythology...the minotaur was always my favorite."

- Madame Delphine LaLaurie

A minotaur is a fictional creature of Greek myth and folklore. It is described as a half-man/half-bull, which includes having the head of a bull and the body of a human. Some depictions may also include a human body with cloven hooves and/or a tale. Classically, the minotaur was found on the Isle of Crete and was kept inside the labyrinth of King Minos. The minotaur was killed by the warrior hero of Athens, Theseus. In some interpretations, the minotaur is thought to be a Minoan god.

American Horror Story
In horror fiction, the minotaur played a role in season three of the FX Network television series American Horror Story. In the 19th century, a wealthy yet sadistic woman from New Orleans named Madame Delphine LaLaurie took exception to the fact that her daughter Borquita was having an affair with a black servant named Bastien. She had Bastien taken up to her personal chamber of horrors where he was chained and fitted with the emptied head of a bull. Through some sort of supernatural ritualism, the head bonded with the body, turning Bastien into a true minotaur. LaLaurie was quite pleased with her handiwork, noting how the minotaur had always been her favorite creature from Greek literature.

More than a century later, the minotaur was still around, having been kept alive and contained by the immortal voodoo queen of New Orleans, Marie Laveau. Laveau was Bastien's lover back in his human days and could not bear to let him go. When Laveau discovered that LaLaurie was active once again (also rendered immortal as part of a curse placed on her by Laveau), the voodoo queen sent Bastien to her former home at Miss Robichaux's Academy to kill her. One of the student witches at the Academy, Queenie, tried to protect LaLaurie, but luring the minotaur outside and seducing him, but the minotaur nearly killed her. The creature then saw an opportunity to kill Laveau's sworn enemy, Fiona Goode, but Goode was too powerful for the savage creature and decapitated him. She sent Bastien's still-living bull head to Laveau's hair salon as a gift.