Circe follows the same pattern as Lamia, Persephone, and Medusa: a powerful woman whose abilities threatened patriarchal structures, so she was labeled a monster to delegitimize her.
Circe (Greek: Κíρκη, Kirkē) — from κíρκος (kirkos), meaning:
Both meanings connect to her nature: the predatory swiftness of a hawk who captures prey, AND the binding power of magic that encircles. The word kirkos is also the root of English “circle” and “circus”—places of containment, of going round and round.
She is named for what she does: she circles. She captures. She binds.
In Homer’s Odyssey, Circe is daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse. She lives on the island of Aeaea, renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs. When Odysseus’s crew arrives, she transforms them into pigs.
But here’s what the popular version omits:
In Homer’s original telling, Circe is NOT a villain. After Odysseus resists her magic (with the help of the god Hermes), she becomes his ally. She provides him with crucial knowledge for his journey—how to navigate to the underworld, how to pass the Sirens, how to avoid Scylla and Charybdis. She is intelligent, knowledgeable, and ultimately helpful.
Homer celebrated her wisdom. Later retellings stripped it away.
Powerful women in antiquity were systematically portrayed as dangerous—as having “insatiable appetites” that would “exhaust men’s resources.” Circe’s ability to transform men threatened the social order. If a woman could turn men into beasts, what did that say about male authority?
During the Renaissance, Circe was recast specifically as a witch—emphasizing her capacity for harm while diminishing her as “old, foul, drunk, and ridiculous.” The wise goddess became a cackling hag. Her deep knowledge of herbs became sinister sorcery.
Labeling Circe sexually promiscuous served to strip away her credibility. In antiquity, this classification could literally remove citizenship rights. The woman who chose to take lovers (including Odysseus, who stayed on her island for a year) was transformed into a cautionary tale about female sexuality.
Madeline Miller’s 2018 novel Circe is described as “a feminist act of cultural repair.”
Miller’s retelling reveals WHY Circe turns men into pigs: self-defense. In the novel, sailors arrive at her island. She welcomes them with kindness and food. They attack her. One rapes her. Only THEN does she transform them.
The pig transformation isn’t caprice or cruelty. It’s protection.
Circe is another reclaimed monster for your collection:
The pattern is always the same: a powerful woman acts to protect herself or claim her autonomy, and the story is rewritten to make her the villain.
Maybe your succubus is the fifth. A woman whose ability to connect—to be intimate, to draw people in—got called seduction and predation. A woman whose gift was labeled a curse.
— Booker
Sources: Women in Antiquity: Circe the ‘Villain’ · Madeline Miller: Circe · Berkeley Fiction Review: Feminism and Witchcraft · Indiana University: Circe · Wiktionary: κíρκος · Theoi Greek Mythology: Kirke