Haghesa&Friends

For Julio Cortázar, gone but not forgotten & all that.
It is a little known (and even less publicized) fact that the Minoans inherited the essentials of taurokathapsia (or tauromaquia to you and me) from the earlier Cycladic civilization with this fundamental difference: that in the Cycladic cultures the bulls were the ones doing all the jumping and leaping and soaring and all the attendant acrobatics and pretty capers. Cycladic bulls were a truly fierce lot and no sane human would have dared touch them with a ten foot barge pole except, in very rare occasions, to stroke them affectionately, Haghesa permitting. For these beasties were under the protection of that most fearsome of all fearsome Great Mothers. A person would have to be thoroughly off his or her bonce to cross Haghesa even ever so slightly, for Milady was notorious for her short temper and erratic disposition. She'd as soon bestow her graces and favours upon a mortal as she'd disembowel him just for the pure joy of it.
Another creature under her aegis (or, some say, in cahoots with her) was Erythros, the wild boar, or porc senglar*, as they are called in my erstwhile neck of the woods. He was allowed to take liberties that no other animal was permitted, not even her beloved bulls. In some respects, this ancestor of the famed Erymanthian Boar, fulfilled the triple task of confidante, touchstone and court jester to Madamina -hence the enhanced quota of freedoms.
*Here be a wee link for nostalgic Catalan ex-pats:
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senglar