Circe Meets Odysseus
With the weft and warp of nature’s grace, I spin tapestries in time and space. Tra la la! Picture me singing at my enchanted loom, handcrafted for me on Crete by Daedalus – a gratitude gift for helping him survive Scylla, every sailor’s nightmare.
We had both created monsters, so he understood me better than most. His wooden cow box contraption, made for my sister Pasiphaë’s perversions, resulted in Asterion, the Minotaur who, like Scylla, loved devouring men – three, six, nine at a time!
Every good spell demands a pleasing soundtrack, and Hermes told me my voice was as enticing as any siren’s to mortal men.
Did that explain the 22 bedraggled pirates that lurched into my clearing? They had just escaped the Laestrygonian cannibals – half their shipmates speared like fish, the other half eaten alive – I’d later learn.
They washed up on my shores, desperate for comfort and feminine nurturing. Hah! Enough with the euphemisms.
They’d been plundering all the way to Troy and back. Raping, pillaging, and taking bed slaves as their due. I knew their ilk.
These renegade sailors were no allies of mine. Just the type of men that deserved emasculation. Many of the sheep and pigs on my island were once just like them.
I had my handmaids and myself to protect. I invited them in. Of course, I did. I offered them honey, cheese, barley, and olives. I laced their wine, then tapped them with my rhabdos. Their ribs cracked, and they became pigs, just like the pirates before them. I revealed their true natures below the masks of humanity.
Why pigs? Because pigs root, rut, and rummage without pretense. They don’t bang on about honor while plotting betrayal. They don’t wear noble masks while stealing from gods. Strip away the stories these warrior sailors told about themselves, and underneath? Grunt, grunt, oink, oink!
Enter Odysseus, aka Mr. Maybe
Not all of them walked into my trap. A suspicious fellow, Eurylochus, hung back. Wouldn’t drink, didn’t trust me. He ran off to fetch his captain.
I watched Odysseus arrive from my upstairs balcony that overlooked the beach. He was a fine specimen from his salt-sprayed hair to his shapely calves, and moved with the deliberate calm of a man who has faced storms and stubborn deities.
Hauling ropes and drawing heavy oars had honed his scarred, sun-burnished deltoids and biceps to perfection.
He’d killed one of my stags and sheathed his sword on his right thigh. He shouldered it as though it were no heavier than a hawk. The nerve of the man!
Wearing a charming smile, I welcomed him in. Close-up, I noticed he had a cleft in his chin. He sniffed at the venison stew bubbling in a cauldron on the stove.
“That smells delicious,” he said. “A welcome change from squid and seabass.”
I gave him my special wine. He drained it, smacked his lips, and held the glass out for more. I refilled it. He drank again, but instead of nodding off into a stupor, he unsheathed his sword, pressed me against the wall, and threatened to cut my throat.
What the Hades?
I gasped and dropped to my knees. Even witches prefer not to be skewered in their kitchens.
How?
He opened his fist to reveal the black-rooted, white-flowered herb – forbidden to mortals – in his palm.
Holy Moly! I might have guessed! Not for nothing was Hermes known as the mercurial meddling messenger god. I waved Odysseus to a kitchen chair. Sit, I sighed. What did Hermes say?
“Make her swear not to harm you, or that self-serving dominatrix will dangle your testicles from her rafters.”
His eyes flicked to the strips of drying meat, rosemary bundles, and plaited onions hanging from my wooden beams.
“Not always,” I countered. “I also toss them to my wolves as obedience-training treats and -.”
A whining Moon jumped up at the mention of a treat. With a low growl, she trotted over to Odysseus, sniffed him from ankle to groin, and bared her incisors. I fondled her ears.
“Not yet, my sweet. What does Aunty Hecate say? Treats come to those who wait. Back to your basket, Moonie – treats tomorrow.”
Still drooling, Moon trotted back to her bed on the hearth as Odysseus shifted in his chair.
“Oh, do sit still, Ody! I can’t abide a fidgeter. What else did Hermes say?”
Odysseus exhaled to a count of three. “That if I subdued you with my sword, you’d ask me to share your bed.”
And?
“And that I should not refuse you.”
I cackled. Typical Hermes!
“Perhaps we can come to a hay-making arrangement before your assets depreciate further.” I mused. It had been a while …
“Turn the pigs back into men,” he demanded.
Ooh. Bold! I liked that. “Only if you make me happy!”
What can I say, temple maidens? He kept his end of the bargain, and I am a witch of my word.
So, I turned the pigs back into his men, on condition they didn’t hit on my handmaids. Then we talked …
The Year of Almost
We talked about Troy and the wooden Trojan horse he devised. He told me about the Cyclops Polyphemus, whose eye he’d burned out while he lay drunk on wine and human flesh — abusing his hospitality, I might add.
Polyphemus’s father, Poseidon, cursed him and his sailors as they fled. The sea had chewed him up and spat him out.
“Every storm since then has been Poseidon’s revenge,” Odysseus said.
He told me about his wife Penelope, a paragon unraveller of shrouds, and their son Telemachus, awaiting his return to Ithaca. He looked forward to the restoration of his kingdom and nobility. Perhaps Penelope might finish something on her loom after all.
Powerful men prefer islands to the mainland — outside the usual jurisdictions. What happens stays in the water.
Odysseus stayed a year. Not for love — I don’t delude myself — but because he was tired. He needed rest. I craved company. It was a fair trade.
Adapted from Women Who Swim with Whales, available from September 20, 2026