Aeolus
e'o-lus, in ancient mythology, the father and god of the winds. He is represented as the son of Poseidon. His kingdom was the Aeolian isles, where he kept the winds shut up in a vast cave, lest they sweep earth and sky away. Sailors were dependent upon Aeolus, who was able to set free a favoring breeze that brought their ship to port, or to let slip a devastating hurricane. Some located this home of the winds in Stromboli, where the rumblings of the volcano were regarded as the mutterings of the winds struggling to go free. The following passage from Conington's translation of the Aeneid gives the gist of the legend:
Here Aeolus, in cavern vast,
With bolt and barrier fetters fast
Rebellious storm and howling blast.
They with the rock's reverberant roar
Chafe blustering round their prison door;
He, throned on high, the sceptre sways,
Controls their moods, their wrath allays.
Break but that sceptre, sea and land,
And heaven's ethereal deep,
Before them they would whirl like sand,
And through the void air sweep.
With bolt and barrier fetters fast
Rebellious storm and howling blast.
They with the rock's reverberant roar
Chafe blustering round their prison door;
He, throned on high, the sceptre sways,
Controls their moods, their wrath allays.
Break but that sceptre, sea and land,
And heaven's ethereal deep,
Before them they would whirl like sand,
And through the void air sweep.
Volume I · Aiton’s Encyclopedia