The fleet next reached the floating island of Aeolia, home of Aeolus, keeper of the winds, who lives within a bronze wall with his six sons and six daughters. Aeolus entertained Odysseus for a month, then gave him a leather bag in which he had tied up all the storm winds, leaving free only the gentle west wind to carry the ships home. For nine days they sailed, and on the tenth they could see Ithaca, close enough to make out people tending fires. Odysseus, who had steered the whole time himself, finally fell asleep. His crew, convinced that the bag held gold and silver he was keeping for himself, opened it. The winds burst out and blew the ships all the way back to Aeolia. Aeolus refused to help again, declaring that a man so hated by the gods must leave his island at once.
After six days of rowing they came to the land of the Laestrygonians, where the nights are so short that a herdsman bringing his flock in meets another driving his out. The other ships moored inside a harbor enclosed by cliffs, but Odysseus cautiously tied his own ship outside. Scouts met the daughter of King Antiphates, who led them to her parents' house. The queen was as huge as a mountain, and Antiphates seized one of the men and ate him. The Laestrygonians, giants by the thousands, gathered on the cliffs and smashed the ships in the harbor with boulders, spearing the men like fish. Odysseus cut his mooring cable, and only his one ship escaped. The rest of the fleet was destroyed.
Grief-stricken, they reached the island of Aeaea, home of the goddess Circe. Odysseus divided his men into two groups, and Eurylochus led twenty-two men to her house in the forest. It was surrounded by lions and wolves that fawned on the men like dogs. Circe, singing at her loom, invited them in and gave them a drink of cheese, barley, honey, and wine mixed with her drugs. Then she struck them with her wand, and they turned into pigs — with pigs' bodies, bristles, and voices, though their minds remained human. She drove them into a sty and threw them acorns. Only Eurylochus, who suspected a trap and stayed outside, escaped to tell Odysseus.
Odysseus set out alone to rescue his men. On the way Hermes met him in the form of a young man and gave him a magical herb, moly, which has a black root and a milk-white flower and is hard for mortals to dig up. Hermes told him that the herb would protect him from Circe's drugs. When she struck him with her wand, he should draw his sword as if to kill her. She would then invite him to bed, but he must first make her swear a great oath not to harm him. All happened as Hermes said. The drug had no effect, Circe recognized him as Odysseus, whose coming had been foretold, and she swore the oath. Odysseus refused to eat until she freed his men, and she turned them back into men, younger and handsomer than before.
Odysseus brought the rest of the crew to Circe's house, despite Eurylochus's angry warnings, and they stayed for a whole year, feasting on meat and wine. Finally his men reminded him of home. That night Odysseus begged Circe to let them go. She agreed, but told him that first he must travel to the house of Hades and Persephone to consult the shade of the blind prophet Teiresias. Odysseus wept at the thought, but she gave him directions and instructions for the rites. As the crew prepared to leave, the youngest man, Elpenor, who had fallen asleep drunk on Circe's roof, woke suddenly, forgot to use the ladder, fell, and broke his neck. The men set out in tears, not knowing that they were going to the land of the dead.
