In this old tale, almost everything is the same as in the legend of Odysseus's wanderings: “… The blacksmith was about to fall asleep, when the door opened, and a whole herd of sheep entered the hut, and behind them Dashing - a huge, terrible woman, about one eye. Dashing sniffed around and said:
- Eh, yes I have, no way, guests; Will I, Likhu, what to have breakfast: I haven't eaten human meat for a long time.
Dashingly blew a torch and pulled the blacksmith off the stove, like a small child … "(" Dashing one-eyed ". A fairy tale in the retelling of KD Ushinsky).
It turns out that giants were found in our Central Russian forests and mountains no worse than the Greek Polyphemus, and maybe even more abruptly, since so many sources literally in one voice describe this either a giant woman or a peasant.
And not only in our open spaces: this phenomenon seems to be Indo-European, since the brothers Grimm wrote their fairy tale "The Robber and His Sons" without trying to alter the Homeric testimonies, and Castren in the 19th century. I heard a similar thing in Russian Karelia (see "Bulletin of the Russian Geographical Society", 1856, V).
“Clumsy, bloodthirsty, ferocious - the very embodiment of evil. The name Likho has become a household name and occupies a place in a synonymous row with the words “trouble”, “grief”, “misfortune”."
Let's take a look east. Tardanak - the hero of the Altai foreigners, is included in the fairy tales on the classic theme of Polyphemus or the Russians about Dashing one-eyed. The role of a giant monster is played by Elbegem, the role of Odysseus or Ivan Tsarevich, who avoids the danger of being cooked and eaten, is the boy Tardanak.
The tale of Tardanak is one of many versions of the widespread legend about the giant man-eating (see Verbitsky. Altai aliens. Pp. 156-157). And what about Sinbad's third trip to the "Land of the Furry"? There is an adventure similar to Odysseus and Polyphemus.
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Dashing one-eyed - evil, trouble; personification of the evil lot, grief; evil spirits … Folklorists, of course, could not point to specific biological objects, to the finds of huge skulls with a hole in the middle of the forehead, only in belief: “Evil, misfortune in beliefs can appear as a living being that pursues a person and destroys him, such an image, however, it is more typical for fairy tales, and not for popular beliefs.
The appearance of "evil-dashing" (appearing most often in fairy tales) is not clearly delineated. Like many inhabitants of another world, it is famously and similar to a person and differs from him. It can be one-eyed (“crooked, unrighteous”); appears as a huge giant; a thin woman with one eye …"
In the Smolensk region, Likho One-eyed was represented as a creature of enormous growth, devouring people. Most often it is a thin, crooked, lonely woman of huge growth or a one-eyed giant.
Let's summarize a little. Lives in a large hut that stands in a dense and dark forest. Often also settles in an old abandoned mill. Instead of a bed, he has a large pile of human bones: according to some reports, this creature does not disdain cannibalism and is capable of devouring any living creature that comes to his hand.
Sometimes Dashing is portrayed as completely blind, but this option is rarely found in fairy tales. Has some magic. Likh's closest relatives in Russian legends call Grief-Misfortune, as well as Dolya and Nedolya.
One should not seek meetings with Leech out of simple curiosity. Unlike other unkind creatures who sometimes show affection for a person and can reward him, you can only expect trouble from Leech.
In one of the tales about Likho, the adventures of Odysseus on the Cyclops Island are almost completely repeated. In this and three other cases, the heroes blind the cannibals by piercing their eyes or pouring boiling oil over them.
As if specifically to make it easier for the heroes, the cannibals are one-eyed and only the giants of Sinbad and the Brothers Grimm are two-eyed. In the first three cases, even the way the heroes escape from the blinded monsters is the same - pretend to be a sheep and go out with the flock.
So, the blacksmith was caught.
“… The blacksmith looks into the stove and says:
- Grandma, I'm a blacksmith.
- What can you do-forge?
-Yes, I can do everything.
- Bite my eye.
- Okay, - he says, - do you have a rope? You need to be tied, otherwise you will not be given; I would have forged your eye …
… He took a thick rope and with this rope twisted it tightly … So he took an awl, fired it up, pointed it at her healthy one, took an ax and hit it with a butt as it hits the awl. As she turned around, she tore the rope and sat on the doorstep …”(“Dashing one-eyed.”Russian fairy tale, arranged by AN Afanasyev).
We do not continue the tale. But let us mention three more relatives of our dashing - clearly not of Polyphemian origin.
The Arimaspes are a mythical people who lived in the extreme northeast of the ancient world. According to Herodotus, these were one-eyed people (which is what the word "arimasp" means in the Scythian language), constantly fighting with vultures, from whom they wanted to take away the gold they were guarding.
That is, a real people. The source of information about the Arimasps was the unresolved epic poem of Aristeus, son of Kaistrobius from Proconnes, "The Epic of the Arimasps" (or "Arimaspia"), the content of which is given by Herodotus's "Scythian story" ("History". IV. 13-16). Aristeus, inspired by Apollo, allegedly arrived in the country of the Issedons and there he wrote down stories about their northern neighbors - Arimasps, griffins (griffins or griffins) and Hyperboreans.
According to Aristeus, the Arimasps live to the north of the Issedons, and to the north of them live vultures guarding the gold, and the Arimasps are at war with both. Moreover, the Arimasps expelled the Issedons from their country, they, in turn, expelled the Scythians, and those the Cimmerians.
Herodotus also gives an explanation (apparently, it is also taken from the poem of Aristeus) of the word "arimasp" that Arimasp is mentioned by other ancient writers (both geographers and tragic poets), but all their messages directly or indirectly go back to Aristeus of Proconnes and nothing they do not add anything new to the message of Herodotus. An exception is Aeschylus, who reports that the Arimasps "live near the golden-bearing Pluto stream" (Chained Prometheus, 805-806). Late antique writers begin to identify the Arimasps and Hyperboreans.
Another candidate for the real inhabitants of the Earth is the werlioki. They are about them in the East Slavic folk tale about a one-eyed creature, possibly of mythological origin.
According to the typical plot of the tale, Verliok (sometimes, for simplicity, he is replaced by a bear) kills an old woman and her two granddaughters, and the old man, a drake, cancer, a rope and an acorn punish him for the murder. According to A. N. Afanasyev, the tale was recorded by Tikhorsky in "southern Russia". Russian variants - 3, Ukrainian - 7, Belarusian - 1.
Illustration from the fairy tale about Verlioka.
The image of Verlioka was creatively rethought in the fairy tale by V. Kaverin “Verlioka” (1982). Verlioka, according to the description, "is tall, about one eye, crocheted nose, beard with a patch, mustache half an arshin, stubble on his head, on one leg - in a wooden boot, props up with a crutch, he himself grins terribly." Of course, it acts as a destroyer and killer.
Philologist O. A. Cherepanova interprets Verlioku as an ancient image of world evil preserved in a fairy tale plot. Which is quite justified, because a member of the RAS cannot write: Verlioka is a direct reflection of the existence of a race of giants on our planet.
In Ukrainian there is the word "virlo-eyed, goggle-eyed" - this is how Gogol wrote this word in his "Little Russian Lexicon".
And finally, Tepegez, or Depe-Gez, is a one-eyed giant (dev) in Turkic mythology, the story of which boils down to the fact that Tepegez drives a person into a cave, his lair, intending to eat, but the person blinds him by thrusting a point into his only eye, and gets out of the cave, throwing a sheep's skin over himself. The word “tepe” in translation from the Turkic languages means “crown”, and “gez” means “eye”.
The image of Tepegoz goes back to the character of the Oguz heroic epic "Kitabi Dede Korkut". Sarah's shepherd meets in a deserted place with his daughter Peri and abuses her. From this connection, a cruel cannibal is born, popularly called Tepegoz because of a single eye on his forehead.
He grew by leaps and bounds. And when they wanted to cut him with a sword, he became even larger. Sarah's shepherd abandoned his son, and Tepegez was brought up by Khan Al Aruz, one of the leaders of the Oghuz, on whose land he was found. Tepegoz attacked caravans, devoured travelers. Only Basat, the son of Al Aruz, was able to defeat Tepegöz, blinding and chopping off his head with his own sword.
Basat kills Tepegöz.
The chapter describing Tepegöz was translated and published in 1815 by the German orientalist Heinrich Friedrich von Diez, who discovered it in the manuscript "The Book of My Grandfather Korkut in the Oguz Language" dated from the 16th century. and stored in the Dresden Library.
So look how many of our dashing relatives were found around the world! And they did not come out of the Homeric Cyclops, as we did out of the Gogol greatcoat, but he came out of them. The myth of Polyphemus is only a reflection of earlier and complete legends about the collisions of "our" humanity with representatives of humanity "other", not at all like you and me.