Untold Italy · Friday, August 28, 2026
The Aeolian Islands, north of Sicily, are discussed as the mythical home of Aeolus, the keeper of the winds in 'The Odyssey.' Professor Skidmore notes the islands' volcanic nature, particularly Stromboli, and how Aeolus gifting Odysseus a bag of winds is crucial to the epic's narrative of sea travel.
“So Homer calls the island Aeolia, the home of Aeolis, the keeper. Of the wind. It's described as being surrounded by a bronze wall and having a sheer, rocky coastline, but that's absolutely all that Homer tells us, but later Greek and Roman writers associated it with the Aeolian Islands. They're spectacularly volcanic at archipelago just north of Sicily, and for the Odyssey, the two ones islands that we need to know about is the main im the Pari and Stromboli, and ancient sailors could see and navigate by the volcanic glow of the Stromboli volcano from the sea.”
“So Aeolus was the mythical keeper of the winds, and that's important to the Odyssey because winds are just really important in these all they only had sales, so they weren't going anywhere without any win and they were going in whatever the direction the wind was if it was strong enough. So Aolus gives Odysseus a bag of the winds and it's got all the bad winds in it, and the only winds kept out as the west one because he wants to get home.”
“So it's about this episode about him almost coming home, but in fact, the physical power of the winds and how you during the ancin Mediterranean were at the mercy of the winds my good as well.”