Tepegöz, the One-Eyed Giant
In an epic of the Oghuz Turks, a one-eyed giant terrorises the land, demanding people for his meals, until a young hero blinds him with a red-hot blade.
What was reported
The Book of Dede Korkut is a collection of epic stories of the Oghuz Turks, shared by Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Turkmenistan. One of them tells of Tepegöz, 'eye on the top of the head', a giant with a single eye in his forehead, born to a shepherd and a fairy.
Nothing can wound him, and he forces the Oghuz people to send him people and sheep to eat. The hero Basat, raised by a lioness, finally heats a knife in the fire, blinds him while he sleeps, and escapes from his cave dressed in a ram's skin, before killing him.
Explanations offered
The story is strikingly close to Homer's tale of Odysseus and the cyclops Polyphemus, and scholars have long debated how they are related. It's a folk epic, still told and taught in Azerbaijan and Türkiye.
- When
- Told for centuries; written down in the 1500s
- Where
- Ganja, Azerbaijan
- Witnesses
- The Book of Dede Korkut
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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