Odysseus and Circe
Also called: Circe, Aeaea
A legend handed down over the centuries.
A Greek myth told in Book 10 of the Odyssey. When the sorceress Circe turns Odysseus’ men into pigs, Odysseus, protected by a herb from Hermes, overcomes her magic, wins his men back and stays a year on her island.
John William Waterhouse · Public domain · Source
This Greek myth is told in Book 10 of Homer’s Odyssey. On the island of Aeaea, where Odysseus and his men landed, lived the sorceress Circe, daughter of the sun god Helios. The men sent to scout ate the food and wine she gave them, and at a touch of her wand were turned into pigs. As Odysseus went to rescue them Hermes appeared and gave him the herb moly to protect him, so that he overcame Circe’s magic and had his men restored to human form.
They stayed a year on Circe’s island. When they left she told Odysseus to go to the underworld and ask the shade of the seer Tiresias about his way home (Book 11), and on his return she taught him how to pass the Sirens and Scylla and Charybdis. In antiquity Aeaea was sometimes linked with Cape Circeo on the west coast of Italy.