Circe

Circe, a sorceress of ancient Greek story, described in the Odyssey as 'fair-haired, a clever goddess, possessing human speech,' sister of 'all-wise Æætes,' daughter of 'the Sun, who gives light to mortals, and of Perse, whom Ocean begot as his daughter.' Round her palace in Ææa were numbers of human beings, whom she had changed into the shapes of wolves and lions by her drugs and incantations. She changed two-and-twenty of the companions of Ulysses into swine; but that hero, having obtained from Mercury the herb Moly, went boldly to the palace of the sorceress, remained uninjured by her drugs, and induced her to disenchant his comrades. He remained with her for a year; and when he departed, she instructed him how to avoid the dangers which he would encounter on his homeward voyage. Ovid relates how, when she was jealous of Scylla, whose love was sought by Glaucus, she poured the juice of poisonous herbs into that part of the sea where her rival was accustomed to bathe, and so changed her into a hideous monster.