In Greek mythology, Aeolus son of Hippotes (Hippotas) is the keeper of the winds whom Odysseus meets in Homer's Odyssey. He rules the floating island of Aeolia, lives with his wife and twelve children (six sons married to six daughters), and gives Odysseus a bag of storm-winds — all but the gentle west wind — for a safe passage home. He is kept distinct from Aeolus son of Hellen, eponym of the Aeolian Greeks, though later authors sometimes confuse or identify the two.
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I.Keeper of the winds
Homer calls Aeolus son of Hippotas dear to the immortal gods and places him on a floating island walled with unbreakable bronze, its cliffs sheer. Zeus has made him keeper of the winds, able to still or rouse whichever he will. In his halls six sons and six daughters marry one another and feast continually beside their parents — an enclosed, almost timeless household at the edge of the known sea.
Apollonius has him calm every wind but the steady west wind at Hera's request so the Argonauts may sail home. Virgil's Aeneid expands the picture: Aeolus pens the winds in a cavernous prison on Aeolia; Juno bribes him with the nymph Deiopea to unleash a storm against Aeneas, until Neptune reasserts command of the sea and rebukes the wind-king's overreach.
II.Odysseus and the bag of winds
After escaping Polyphemus, Odysseus reaches Aeolia. Aeolus entertains the crew for a month, hears the tale of Troy, and when they depart binds the blustering winds in an oxhide bag, leaving only Zephyrus free to blow them toward Ithaca. Within sight of home Odysseus falls asleep; the men, suspecting treasure, open the bag. The storms drive the ships back to Aeolia.
Aeolus refuses a second gift: a man so hated by the gods, he says, may not be helped again. The same bag-of-winds episode is retold by Hyginus, Ovid, and Apollodorus. Later geography identified Aeolia with one of the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily.
III.Homonyms and rationalizations
This Aeolus is not the son of Hellen who fathers the Aeolid dynasties, though Euripides' lost Aeolus, Hyginus, and Ovid sometimes blend the wind-ruler with the Hellenic stem — sharing names such as Canace and Macareus, or calling Alcyone a descendant of Hippotes. Diodorus Siculus rationalizes the myth: a just host who taught sailors the use of sails and foresaw local winds from fire-omens, and so was remembered as "keeper of the winds."
Palaephatus similarly rejects a literal bag of winds, proposing instead an astronomer who advised Odysseus when seasonal winds would rise, and replacing the bronze wall with a city guarded by hoplites.