Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. For today’s Mermaid Monday blog post, I will be exploring the Aquatic and Mermaidy lore in The Odyssey! In five separate sections below, I will look briefly at each figure from The Odyssey. Without further ado, let’s look at figures with Aquatic lore found in this epic poem!
CIRCE
~Ah, how could we begin with anyone other than Circe, the famed Sorceress who was the daughter of Helios and Perse? Of course, I had to begin with Circe! She is from a family of several Divine Enchantresses, including Hekate, Pasiphae, Ariadne, and Medea. She has a home on the Isle of Aiaia (also sometimes spelled Aeaea). Circe makes quite the impression when she enters the story, turning Odysseus’s men into pigs! As a note, her transformations are not just random; she seeks to transform the man into the true animal form within them, so those men were truly pigs inside. Her Isle also has Lions and Baboons because of this. After some good advice from Hermes, Odysseus does not reject Circe when she shows attraction to him, and he lives on her Island for years. They even have a son together named Telegonus. She even teaches him a great amount of magickal knowledge, which became invaluable in actually getting Odysseus home eventually!
CALYPSO
~The other Great Enchantress of The Odyssey, Calypso, is a daughter of Atlas who lived on the Island of Ogygia. Odysseus spends seven years with Calypso on her island as her lover. She is described as a Nymph and Goddess, with Odysseus even calling her the ‘dread goddess with human speech.’ Famously, Calypso desired to have Odysseus stay with her on her Ogygia permanently, even going as far as to offer him immortality if he stayed! Odysseus chose to go home to his wife instead, but Calypso attempted to keep him with her anyway, which led to Zeus sending Hermes to tell Calypso to release him. So, she did end up helping to build a boat and sent him back to his wife!
THE SIRENS
~In The Odyssey, the Sirens were one of the worst dangers at sea, right alongside the next two figures I will be discussing. They have a Siren’s Song that is so deeply moving and alluring that Sailors will end up crashing upon the rocks trying to get to the Island where the Sirens reside. Interestingly, the Sirens here are described as half-bird and half-woman instead of the Mermaid-like description we think of now. Yet, they are very much so Aquatic, as they live on an Island and lure Sailors to their doom! In fact, in The Odyssey, the Sirens fail to lure Odysseus and his men because they blocked their ears with wax, and, as Odysseus wanted to hear the song, his crew tied him down to the mast of the ship. This led to the Sirens themselves dying, as he was the only man to hear their song and live, and that was never supposed to happen!
SCYLLA
~Scylla is one of the Great Sea Goddesses described as monstrous in her myths. She lives in the Straits of Messina, the channel that divides Sicily from Italy, and that is where Odysseus and his crew encountered her! Her parentage is not set in stone, with her father being Phorkys, but her mother sometimes being said to be Hekate, or sometimes Lamia, or sometimes Keto. But no matter what, she clearly has a great amount of power from her parentage, no matter who mothered her. She appears as a combination of human and canine, with marine components (sometimes described as Mermaidenly or Dolphin-like). Her appearance, along with her bad temper and tendency to cause shipwrecks, is why people call her a monster. Interestingly, she does not have the power to transform; she is stuck forever in her monstrous form! There are various versions of how she came to be monstrous, sometimes having once had the ability to transform, eventually losing it. One of the most famous reasons that Scylla appears as a monster is that she was once a beautiful Nymph, but due to the fact that the fisherman Glaucus loved her instead of Circe, Circe turned Scylla into a monster out of jealousy!
CHARYBDIS
~Charybdis is another Sea Monster who lives next to Scylla in the Straits of Messina. Scylla and Charybdis make a duo whom Sailors need to sail between in order to cross the Strait safely! In many myths, Charybdis is the daughter of Gaia and Poseidon. It is common to see her being incredibly loyal to her father! This makes her a common appearance in Aquatic myths, not just The Odyssey, but also The Aeneid, and Jason and the Argonauts.
~I hope you have enjoyed this look at Aquatic Lore in The Odyssey. What is your favorite part of Aquatic Lore in the story? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the painting Calypso’s Isle by Herbert James Draper. I found the art on https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/calypso.html#google_vignette.
LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries
Further Reading
- The Odyssey by Homer
- Encyclopedia of Spirits by Judika Illes
- Mythology by Edith Hamilton
- Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch