One-eyed giants
One eye, set in the middle of a face, turns up in stories that never met. Homer gives it to Polyphemus in Odyssey IX; the Irish Cath Maige Tuired gives Balor an eye that ruins what it sees; the Book of Dede Korkut blinds Tepegöz in his cave. The catalogue keeps them side by side because the echo is interesting, not because an echo proves a common source.
- PolyphemusFree
Greek
The one-eyed Cyclops who trapped Odysseus in his cave.
- BalorMembers
Celtic / Irish
Fomorian king whose eye destroyed armies: slain by his grandson Lugh.
- TepegözMembers
Oghuz Turkic
A one-eyed man-eater, blinded in his cave by a young man who tricked him. When a German scholar read the manuscript in 1815, he concluded that Homer had got the story from the East.
- Ysbaddaden BencawrMembers
Welsh
Welsh chief giant of Culhwch and Olwen: his eyelids had to be propped up with forks.
- KatallaniMembers
Albanian
One-eyed Albanian man-eater with no knees: he cannot bend his legs to chase you.
- OjáncanuMembers
Cantabrian
One-eyed Cantabrian giant of the forest: enemy of the good anjana.
- MapinguariMembers
Amazonian, Brazilian
One-eyed Amazonian forest giant with a vertical mouth and a hide arrows will not enter.
- The CailleachMembers
Gaelic: Irish, Scottish, Manx
The Neolithic passage tombs at Loughcrew are said to be stones that fell out of her apron while she was jumping between the hills.
- Croatian Giants: The Lesser TraditionsMembers
Croatian
Four small Croatian traditions: one-eyed giants, the Vedi, Sambo under Samobor, the Neretva mounds.