[titbvszw] Icarus is a lie

Icarus flew too close to the sun, causing the wax that held his wings together to melt, so he fell and died.

what really would have happened is Icarus would have frozen to death first, or run out of oxygen.  these facts are well known to anyone who has climbed a tall mountain, something that ancient people, the composers of myths, did do.  either of these endings would have preserved the moral of the story, man being punished for hubris.

why is there discrepancy between myth and reality?  what was the kernel of truth, the real event the inspired the story?

perhaps someone made a glider and initially had some OK flights (glides).  then, it catastrophically broke while mid-air, killing the test pilot.  blaming it on the sun, or hubris, makes for a better story than failure due to shoddy engineering.