God's country

As authors rewrite the exploits of Greek mythology’s gods and heroes for a modern-day audience, Rosie Paterson goes in search of the key characters in the Cyclades

- Rosie Paterson

IF you stand still in the centre of Villa ANM’s terrace—the infinity pool in front of you, Isle Planitis and its sole building, a squat stone lighthouse, in the distance—you’ll soon realise that you’re not alone. Your visitors arrive from the sea, the once calm surface of the Aegean, a cerulean expanse between the swimming pool and lighthouse, whipped into a frenzy, blue now iced with white-tipped waves. They make their way up the steep and scrubby land, whip past the villa’s rounded corners with a hollow whooshing sound and send your hair flying in all directions. The Boreads, twins called Zetes and Calais, have arrived. They’re the winged sons of Boreas, the North Wind.

The island of Tinos and the Cyclades archipelago—a diadem of islands crowning uninhabited Delos, south-east of Athens— is famously windy. Legend has it that Zetes and Calais were slain by fellow Argonaut Heracles on Tinos, for sailing on without him when he went to look for his lover, Hylas, in Mysia. Destined to rage in wind-like form for the rest of time, the brothers—or the meltemi winds, to give the phenomenon its official name—help move on lingering clouds and keep visitors cool in the height of summer.