Circe was a witch, daughter of the sun god Helios and Perse, one of the Oceanid nymphs, she transformed her enemies or those who insulted her into animals with the use of magical potions, as she knew a lot about herbs and their medicinal effect.

Ancient tradition places the island of Circe on Mount Circaion. It is located in southern Latium between Rome and Naples, in the Gulf of Gaeta. According to Stravon, Greek geographer, philosopher and historian: "it is a mountain that looks like an island, surrounded as it is by sea and marshes".

Οdysseus and his companions reached ηer island during their wanderings. Circe invited the first of those who visited her to a meal with food in which she had poured some of her magic potions. After eating, she touched them with her magic wand and turned them into pigs. Only Eurylochus, who suspected her from the beginning, was spared and informed Odysseus and the others who had stayed on their ships. Odysseus set out to rescue Circe's victims. On the way, Hermes caught up with him and told him to get an herb so he wouldn't have the same fate. So it happened. After Circe's magic failed, the witch was surprised enough to fall in love with Odysseus and agree to restore his companions to human form. Then Odysseus and his companions remained on her island for a year and then she instructed them how to return to their homeland.

In the one year that Odysseus lived on the island of Circe, they had a child together, Telegonus. As soon as Telegonus became an adult, Circe sent him to find his father, who had already returned to Ithaca. At that time the blind prophet Tiresias had made an oracle to Odysseus that he would die "of sea" (which can be explained in two ways: either "will die out of the sea" or "of the sea"). Meanwhile, although Telegonus reached Ithaca, he began to plunder the island to feed his crew, mistaking it for Corfu. Odysseus and his son Telemachus rushed to defend their city, whereupon Telegonos unwittingly killed his own father, whose face he had never seen in his life. Confirming the oracle, Telegonus had killed Odysseus with a spear tipped with the poisonous stinger ("acanthus") of a manta ray's tail.

Woman from Afar tribe, Ethiopia.

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