What is the name of the floating island of Aeolus?

The floating island of Aeolus in Homer’s Odyssey is Aeolia. It is the home of Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, whom Odysseus visits during his long journey home from Troy.

Aeolus welcomes Odysseus and gives him an ox-hide bag containing the hostile winds, while the gentle west wind carries the ships toward Ithaca. When the crew opens the bag—believing it holds treasure—the released winds drive the fleet back to Aeolia. Aeolus then refuses to help again, thinking the gods must oppose Odysseus.

Homer describes Aeolia as a floating island encircled by an unbreakable bronze wall. Later Greek and Roman writers associated the mythical place with the real Aeolian, or Lipari, Islands north of Sicily, but Homer does not identify a precise geographic location. Aeolia is therefore not the same as Scheria, Ogygia, or Aeaea, which are separate islands in Odysseus’s travels.