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Lyall Watson – Heaven’s Breath

An astonishing number of the earliest wind myths, have them living in, or coming from, a cave or a hole in the wall or ground.

The Bakitara of Uganda identified the sacred hill of Kahola as the home of the winds and pointed out that it had four holes from which the breezes blew…. The Iriquois believed that Gaoh, the spirit of all the winds, held his captives in a mountain cave called ‘The Home of the Winds’.  The Algonquin shared the same belief. …. The Batek Negrito of Malaysia held that the winds were kept in a cave on the peak of Batu Bolok and guided out from there along ‘ropes’ arranged by Gobar, the supreme being… The Maori of New Zealand have a host of stories about the hero Maui, the clever one of many brothers, who captured all the winds and confined them in caves… On the nearby Chatham Islands, the hero was Tawhaki, who collected his winds in a basket.  And in Samoa, they were held captive in a coconut….. in the Swiss Alps, rain bearing winds are said to come from recognised Wetterloch or weather holes

All the holes, the caves, the chambers, the gods and the heroes seem by the first millenium BC to have slid together into a more precise mythology, one that is familiar to us from Ancient Greece.  Aeolus became the warden of the winds.  He was the son of Poseidon the sea god and lived on the bronze walled island of Aeolia, where he kept the wrestling winds and soaring tempests chained in a cave.  Their constant chafing and moaning in this underground prison seem to have …. interfered with his eternal feasting …