Aeolus- Greek GodDeity"Keeper of the Winds"

The Floating Island

Aeolus kept the winds for Zeus, dwelling on Aeolia — a floating island girt by a wall of unbreakable bronze, its palace a place of perpetual feasting. There he lived with his six sons and six daughters, who were married to one another. When Odysseus arrived after escaping the Cyclops Polyphemus, Aeolus entertained him hospitably for a month, listening to tales of the Trojan War.

Upon departure, Aeolus gave Odysseus a leather bag made from the hide of a nine-year-old ox, containing all the winds that would blow him off course. Only Zephyrus, the favorable west wind, was left free to carry the ships toward Ithaca. For nine days Odysseus sailed, keeping constant watch over the bag. On the tenth day, within sight of Ithaca's shores, exhaustion overcame him and he slept. His crew, suspecting the bag contained gold that their captain was hoarding, opened it. The winds burst forth and drove the ships back across the entire sea to Aeolia.

The Refusal

Odysseus came back to Aeolia in desperation, begging for another chance. Aeolus met him at the gates and turned him away. A man who had wasted the gift of the winds was hated by the gods, and Aeolus would not risk their anger by helping him again. There was no second bag. Odysseus sailed on without the winds' favor.

Warden of the Winds

Aeolus imprisoned the winds in a cave on his island, howling behind stone doors until a god's command set them loose. In Virgil's Aeneid, Juno comes to Aeolus and offers him a nymph as bride if he will loose the winds against Aeneas's fleet. Aeolus obliges — he drives his spear into the mountainside and the winds pour through the wound in the rock, lashing the sea into chaos. But Neptune rises from the deep, furious that anyone has disturbed his waters without leave. He calms the waves and sends the winds home.