CIRCE, in Greek legend, a famous sorceress, the daughter of Helios and the ocean nymph Perse. She was able by means of drugs and incantations to change human beings into the forms of wolves or lions, and with these beings her palace was surrounded. Odysseus visited her island, Aiaie, with his companions, whom she changed into swine, but the hero, protected by the herb molu, which he had received from Hermes, compelled her to restore them to their original shape. He lived with her for a year, and when he determined to leave, she instructed him how to sail to the House of Hades in order to learn his fate from the prophet Teiresias. Upon his return she also gave him directions for avoid ing the dangers of the journey home (Homer, Odyssey, x.—xii.; Hyginus, Fab. 125). Graeco-Italian tradition placed her island near Italy, or located her on the promontory Circei. Cf. Plcvs,