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Bayreck Giant

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Tradition: Czech Mythology
Alternative Names: Bayreck Giant, Giant of Bayreck Castle
Category: Giant

The Myth

The Bayreck Giant was a giant who lived in Bayreck Castle, a ruined stronghold nestled in the mountain forests near Mount Osser in the Bohemian Forest. According to local legends, giants once inhabited the surrounding mountains and maintained friendly relations with their relatives living in neighboring strongholds. The Bayreck Giant regularly hurled his snuffbox across to the Giant’s Mountain near Kauth so that his cousin could use it. He also exchanged daily greetings with the giant who lived in the castle at Gewinzi, shaking hands across the hills and valleys. When the people of Neuern needed hammers, the Bayreck Giant would simply throw them down to the town.

The giant’s family occasionally descended into the human world. One day, the giantess went down into the countryside and scooped up a farmer, together with his plow and oxen, carrying them back to the castle. Her father was displeased by her actions and ordered her to return the little human to the place where she had found him. He warned that these small people would eventually bring about the giants’ destruction. The story portrays the giants as immensely powerful beings whose interactions with ordinary humans could have dangerous consequences, even when their actions were not necessarily intended to cause harm.

Bayreck Castle was also associated with an extensive network of underground tunnels. According to one tale, a goose chased into a passage beneath the castle emerged from the well at Klenau. On another occasion, someone lit a fire in the castle’s cellar, and the smoke reportedly travelled for miles before appearing at the Black Tower in Klatovy. These passages have since been filled in, but they remain part of the castle’s mysterious reputation.

An enchanted treasure is said to lie beneath Bayreck Castle. Every Palm Sunday, while High Mass is celebrated in Neuern, a chasm opens and reveals the way to the hidden wealth. Once, a priest, a sacristan, and a poor shepherd entered the opening in the hope of becoming rich. Inside, they discovered the devil sitting on an iron chest, with its key held between his teeth. They tried sprinkling him with holy water and pulling him away, but he refused to move. When they asked what he wanted in exchange for the treasure, he breathed fire and demanded a soul. The priest and sacristan offered him the shepherd’s soul, but the devil rejected it because the shepherd was an honest man. Finally, the devil agreed to surrender the chest if they carried him to Klenau in a nine-cornered sack. Unable to find such a sack, the three men abandoned their attempt, and the treasure remains hidden beneath Bayreck Castle to this day.

Sources

“Schloss Bayreck.” SAGEN.at – Böhmerwald-Sagen. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/tschechien/watzlik/schlossbayreck.html

Delisrutsch Giant

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Tradition: Liechtenstein Mythology
Alternative Names: Delisrotsch, Deli, Fidel
Category: Giant

The Myth

The Delisrutsch is a giant associated with a tragic legend from the Lawena Alp in Liechtenstein. According to the story, the events took place around three hundred years ago, when the herdsmen and dairyman who tended the alpine pastures were known for their godlessness. Before driving their cattle up to the alp, they declared that they would undertake the journey in the devil’s name rather than God’s. A poor widow, however, insisted that she would drive her own cow to the pasture in God’s name alone.

One day, the herdsmen drove their cattle from the Lawena barn towards the Rote Wand, or Red Wall. As the animals reached the pasture, a section of rock suddenly broke away from the mountainside and thundered down the slope. The enormous rockfall buried the cattle and their keepers, destroying the herds in a single catastrophe. Only the widow’s cow survived, spared from the disaster because its owner had entrusted its journey to God.

In another version of the legend, the herdsman who tended the alpine pasture was himself a giant. When the rockfall descended, it buried him along with his cows, while the poor widow’s cow remained unharmed. The giant was named Deli, a form of Fidel, and the place where the disaster occurred became known as Delisrotsch. The legend thus explains the local place-name through the giant’s death and presents the survival of the widow’s cow as a sign of divine protection.

Sources

“Die Delisrutsch.” SAGEN.at – Liechtensteiner Sagen. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/liechtenstein/seger/delisrutsch.html

Upper Austria Giant

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Tradition: Austrian Mythology
Alternative Names: Oberösterreichische Riesen, Giants of the Mühlviertel, Giant Imago, Giant Hans
Category: Giant

The Myth

Giants feature prominently in the legends of Upper Austria, where they are credited with shaping the landscape, building churches and castles, and leaving enormous stones and bones as traces of their presence. Their immense strength could explain violent storms, unusual rock formations, and the construction of buildings that seemed beyond ordinary human capabilities. Around Traunkirchen, people once said that giants were becoming angry whenever storms raged and roared across the area. Other traditions placed giants in underground passages and caves near Enzenberg, while reports of enormous human remains discovered near Kirchschlag were interpreted as evidence that giants had once lived there.

Many stories emphasize the extraordinary strength and appetite of individual giants. Giant Hans, a farmhand from the upper Mühlviertel, belonged to a family of giants and was hired by a farmer when he was seventeen. At breakfast, he ate two large loaves of bread, and when sent into the forest to gather wood, he simply pulled trees out of the ground by their roots. His enormous appetite frightened the farmer and his wife, who struggled to provide enough food for him. The farmer eventually attempted to kill Hans by throwing blocks of stone into a deep pit he was digging, but Hans remained unharmed and merely complained that the farmer was putting too much sand into the hole. Another legend tells of a giant sleeping in the Bohemian Forest whose body was mistaken for a mountain by a passing farmer. When the farmer accidentally drove his horses into the giant’s nostril, the giant sneezed so violently that the farmer and his team were hurled an hour away. The enormous giant Imago was likewise remembered for using high mountains as flint, with a fragment of one supposedly forming the Traunstein.

Giants were also credited with constructing important buildings and monuments throughout the region. Three giants supposedly helped build the church at Taufkirchen by throwing stones over great distances from the Rainbach stream to the construction site. Their heads were later associated with carved figures supporting the church’s vault, known as the Giants’ Heads. Giants from the Viechtau were said to have built the small church on Johannisberg near Traunkirchen, while a giantess helped construct the town tower of Enns by carrying a massive stone block in her apron. A rib attributed to the giantess reportedly hung from a chain in the tower for many years. Other legends credit giants with building Neuhaus Castle, Wolfsegg Castle, and Lichtenhag Castle. Enormous bones, handprints, knee impressions, and stones scattered along streams were interpreted as physical reminders of their work.

Some tales explain unusual geological formations through conflicts between giants and other supernatural beings. Near Natternbach, St. Ägidi, and Kopfing, a balancing stone known as the Wackelstein is also called the Maiden’s Stone. According to the legend, three pagan maidens carried it in their aprons to a wooded ridge to perform sacrifices. In the Katergebirge mountains, a giant once possessed a mighty hammer and lived near the Jochwand and the Ewige Wand, which were originally connected. After a dwarf living in Anzenau repeatedly mocked him, the giant hurled his hammer at the dwarf, shattering him and causing the ground beneath him to disappear into the depths. The two rock walls were separated, and the end of the Jochwand became known as Hammerberg.

Another legend from the Mühlviertel describes giants who attempted to build a castle where Freistadt now stands. They gathered stones from the Aist River, taking them from a wall that the devil was constructing to drown the inhabitants of Prägarten. The devil had intended to punish the inhabitants for stealing two of his souls, but the giants repeatedly disrupted his work by carrying away his building materials. In retaliation, the devil destroyed their castle and threw its enormous stone blocks into the Aist, where they supposedly remain. He later encountered one of the giants in the Thury Valley and transformed him into a boulder known as Devil’s Rock. Across these traditions, giants are powerful figures whose actions explain the origins of buildings, stones, mountains, and other striking features of the Upper Austrian landscape.

Sources

“Die Kraft der Riesen.” SAGEN.at – Österreichische Sagen aus Oberösterreich. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/oesterreich/oberoesterreich/allgemein/kraft_riesen.html

Hunen

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Tradition: Dutch Mythology
Alternative Names: Huinen, Hunnen, Hunewief (giant’s wife), Hunewiven (giant women)
Category: Giant

The Myth

Hunen are giants from the folklore of Drenthe and Overijssel in the eastern Netherlands. They are credited with building the region’s ancient megalithic tombs, known as hunebedden, as well as huneborgen and huneschanzen. They were enormous, powerful men capable of extraordinary feats of strength, including pulling entire trees out of the ground. Their immense strength made them dangerous to ordinary people, even during seemingly harmless encounters.

People had to be careful when a hune offered to shake their hand, as the giant’s grip could crush a person’s hand. In one tale, a farmer anticipated this danger by offering the hune the wooden handle of a manure fork instead. The giant squeezed it so forcefully that he ground the handle into powder. The story illustrates the extraordinary strength of the hunen and the need for ordinary people to use their wits when dealing with them.

The female hunen, known as hunewiven or hunewiefs, were associated with witchcraft. They could use their powers to heal people, but they could also inflict illness through magic. Their frightening reputation extended into family life, particularly in stories about protecting children. A Twents lullaby warns a hunewief to stay away from a baby’s cradle, threatening to beat her if she approaches. The song reflects the fear that a hunewief might make a child sick or steal it away.

The hunen thus occupy an important place in regional Dutch folklore as both legendary builders and powerful supernatural beings. While the male giants were known chiefly for their immense physical strength, their female counterparts possessed magical abilities that could bring either healing or harm. Their association with the ancient megalithic monuments of Drenthe and Overijssel connects these beings to the mysterious origins of the region’s prehistoric landscape.

Sources

Van der Veen, Abe. “Van aardmannetje tot zwarte juffer: Een lijst van Nederlandse en Vlaamse elfen en geesten.” Abe de Verteller. https://abedeverteller.nl/van-aardmannetje-tot-zwarte-juffer-een-lijst-van-nederlandse-en-vlaamse-elfen-en-geesten/

Fachan

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Tradition: Scottish Mythology
Alternative Names: Fachin, Fachen, Direach Ghlinn Eitidh, Dithreach, Dwarf of Glen Etive
Category: Giant

The Myth

The Fachan is a terrifying monster or giant from Scottish Gaelic folklore, particularly associated with the Highlands. It possesses a grotesquely asymmetrical body, with a single eye in the middle of its face, one hand protruding from its chest instead of two arms, and one leg emerging from the center of its body. A single tuft of hair grows from the top of its head. According to folklorist John Francis Campbell, this tuft is so rigid that it would be easier to uproot an entire mountain than to bend it. The creature’s unusual anatomy makes it appear less like a human being and more like a monstrous being from another world.

The Fachan is also known by the names Direach Ghlinn Eitidh and Dithreach, translated as the dwarf of Glen Etive. Despite this association with a particular Scottish landscape, it is described as a giant-like monster rather than an ordinary dwarf. Its single leg does not necessarily make it slow or helpless: comparisons have been drawn with creatures from Arabic traditions, such as the nasnas and shiqq, which are described as half-human beings capable of hopping about on one leg with remarkable agility.

Similar creatures appear in Irish Gaelic literature. In his collection Beside the Fire, Douglas Hyde records a description of a monstrous being resembling Campbell’s Fachan. This creature has a black face with one eye in its forehead, one hairy hand emerging from its chest, and a single thick, veined leg. It carries an enormous iron flail-club from which hang twenty chains, each bearing fifty large apples enchanted with poisonous spells. Its body is wrapped in a girdle made from deer and roebuck skins and protected by a dark blue mantle of thick, twisted feathers. The description presents a being that resembles the devil more than a human.

Campbell and Hyde considered these descriptions part of a shared Gaelic tradition of monstrous beings. The name Fachan may be related to the Irish word fathach, meaning giant, and the Scottish Gaelic famhair, also meaning giant. The creature therefore belongs to a broader tradition of fearsome, physically extraordinary beings in Gaelic folklore, distinguished by its single eye, single hand, single leg, and remarkably rigid tuft of hair.

Sources

“Fachan.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 16, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachan

Ujanko

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Tradition: Navarrese Mythology, Spanish Mythology
Alternative Names: Uhanko, Ukhanko
Category: Giant

The Myth

Ujanko is a strange supernatural creature from the folklore of Navarre, a region in northern Spain. It is described as an enormous, multi-eyed giant whose body is covered with numerous eyes. Each eye disappears on a particular day of the year and reappears on Christmas Eve, giving the creature an unusual connection to the passage of time and the Christmas season. In Basque-speaking communities of northeastern Spain, Ujanko is understood as the personification of a year, with its many eyes representing the days that make up the annual cycle.

According to the legend, Ujanko has a single enormous eye on its face, which is often hidden beneath a multitude of eyes covering its body. On a particular day, ten of these eyes disappear, transforming the creature’s appearance. Its many eyes are said to correspond to the days of the year, and the return of its eyes on Christmas Eve marks the completion of the cycle. This strange annual transformation connects Ujanko to seasonal change and the transition from one year to the next.

Ujanko belongs to a wider group of giant-like supernatural beings found in the folklore of the Iberian Peninsula. It has been compared to the Ombre de los Ojos, or Man of the Eyes, from Cabazuela del Valle in Extremadura, and the One-eyed Nasus from Catalonia. Its unusual anatomy also recalls Argus from ancient Greek mythology, the many-eyed giant whose numerous eyes made him an exceptional watcher. However, Ujanko’s distinctive association with the yearly calendar and Christmas Eve gives it a particular place in Navarrese folklore.

Sources

“Ukhanko.” New Bestiary (Bestiary.us). https://www.bestiary.us/ukhanko

Giant of Penhill

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Tradition: English Mythology
Alternative Names: The Giant of Penhill, The Penhill Giant
Category: Giant

The Myth

The Wicked Giant of Penhill was a monstrous figure said to have terrorized the countryside around Penhill and Bolton Castle in Yorkshire before the Norman Conquest. According to the legend, he was descended from Thor, the Norse god of thunder and storms, and retained a fierce, violent nature worthy of his divine ancestry. He lived in a castle on Penhill and devoted himself to raising a vast herd of pigs. His closest companion was Wolfhead, a powerful boarhound that helped him guard his livestock. The giant’s enormous strength and cruel temperament made him a source of fear throughout the surrounding countryside.

One day, the giant encountered a flock of sheep belonging to a young shepherdess named Gunda. Finding amusement in the animals’ helplessness, he ordered Wolfhead to attack them. As the hound tore through the flock, Gunda begged the giant to spare her father’s sheep, which represented everything her family possessed. Rather than show mercy, the giant delighted in her distress and attempted to assault her. Gunda managed to escape his grasp, but the enraged giant sent Wolfhead after her. When she struck the hound on the nose with a stone to defend herself, the giant caught up with her and killed her with his club.

Some weeks later, the giant discovered that one of his young boars had been killed by an arrow. Furious, he demanded that every man in the dale who could draw a bow appear before him on Penhill within a week. When Wolfhead tracked down the dead boar but failed to return promptly, the giant threatened the hound and eventually killed his only companion with an arrow. The giant then confronted the assembled men, demanding that they identify the person responsible for killing his boar. When nobody could answer, he ordered every father to return the following day carrying his youngest child, threatening to spill the blood of the entire community if they continued to defy him.

An elderly hermit confronted the giant and warned him that the following day was Thor’s day. If the giant spilled blood or caused any child to cry from pain or fear, the hermit declared, he would never enter his castle again, whether alive or dead. The giant dismissed the warning and prepared to torment the villagers. Meanwhile, a servant who had long endured his master’s cruelty tried to warn him about ominous dreams and the ravens and crows circling the castle. The giant responded by kicking the servant so violently that he left him for dead. In desperation, the servant dragged straw, wood, and peat into the castle’s main hall and set them alight.

As the giant approached the gathering of villagers and their children, he discovered dead boars lying along his path, with another nine appearing after every nine steps. Enraged, he threatened to slaughter the children and stain the hillside with the blood of every living person present. The hermit refused to submit to him and challenged him to look behind. There, the giant saw his castle engulfed in flames. But an even more terrible sight awaited him: Gunda, the shepherdess he had murdered, stood beside Wolfhead, the hound he had killed. She held the hound on a long rope before releasing it. As Wolfhead sprang at the giant’s throat, the giant stumbled backward over the edge of Penhill cliff. Both plunged over the precipice and were never seen again. The wicked giant’s reign of terror thus ended through the return of those he had wronged.

Sources

“The Wicked Giant of Penhill.” Yorkshire Folk Tales, March 4, 2019. https://yorkshirefolktales.home.blog/2019/03/04/the-wicked-giant-of-penhill/

Longbo

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Tradition: Chinese Mythology
Alternative Names: Longbo Kingdom Giant, Longbo Fisherman, Longbo Guo
Category: Giant

The Myth

Longbo is a giant associated with the Longbo Kingdom in Chinese mythology. The name can refer both to an individual giant and to the people of his legendary kingdom. Longbo giants are renowned for their immense stature and extraordinary strength, particularly their ability to travel enormous distances in a few steps and catch gigantic sea creatures with a fishing line. In the Liezi, a great man from the Kingdom of Longbo is described as being able to reach five mountains in only a few steps and catch six giant turtles while fishing.

Descriptions of the Longbo people emphasize their extraordinary size and longevity. According to a commentary by Guo Pu of the Jin dynasty, a text called the Hetu Yuban describes the inhabitants of the Longbo Kingdom as thirty zhang tall and living for eighteen thousand years before dying. Their immense proportions made them figures of wonder in Chinese literature, where their fishing exploits became symbols of superhuman power. Tang dynasty poet Zhang Shuo described Longbo fishing with a single line and catching two turtles at once, while Li Bai’s Ode to the Great Hunt similarly refers to Longbo fishing for a spirit turtle.

Longbo also appears in broader literary depictions of a world filled with supernatural creatures. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Longbo is mentioned alongside Hai Ruo, Jiang Fei, the Water Mother, a thousand-foot whale, a nine-headed centipede, and various ghosts and monsters. Later poets continued to use Longbo as an image of enormous size and overwhelming power. Qing dynasty poet Wei Yuan, for example, evoked a man from the Dragon Kingdom whose immense presence seemed capable of overturning heaven and earth and unleashing waves.

The Longbo giant is therefore remembered chiefly through literary references to his extraordinary stature and legendary fishing abilities. The surviving accounts associate him with a kingdom of giants and with the capture of enormous turtles and fish, making him a striking example of the gigantic beings found in Chinese mythological literature.

Sources

“龍伯.” Chinese Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 16, 2026. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BE%8D%E4%BC%AF

Amayuryuk

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Tradition: Canadian Mythology
Alternative Names: Amayuryuk, Amayuruk, Amayujuk, Amarajuk, Amajurjuk, Amautalik, Amayuq, Amautalik (Amayuryuk)
Category: Giant

The Myth

Amayuryuk is a giant woman in Canadian Inuit folklore who kidnaps children and carries them away in a large pouch on her back. She is described as wearing an amauti, a traditional Inuit woman’s garment designed to carry a child. In some accounts, the pouch is not part of her clothing but is formed from driftwood or driftwood-like material. Her enormous size and fearsome appearance make her a frightening figure in Inuit stories, where she is said to steal children and take them far from their homes.

In Inuit accounts recorded in the Kivalliq region, Amayuryuk is also known as Amautalik. She is described as a giantess living inland, sometimes in a large amaut or pouch. According to one account, she places people she has stolen inside this pouch and carries them away. Her immense size is emphasized in stories that describe her as so large that adults can look like small children beside her. Other accounts portray her as a terrifying old woman whose presence frightens children into behaving, warning them that she will take them away if they misbehave.

Although Amayuryuk is said to have once kidnapped children and appeared near human settlements, some traditions hold that such creatures no longer steal children or approach human dwellings. Nevertheless, reports of encounters persisted into modern times. In 1999, a resident of Rankin Inlet in Nunavut reportedly claimed to have seen an enormous woman wearing an amauti made of caribou hide. The account describes her as having a pouch on her back and approaching a person before disappearing. Amayuryuk is sometimes compared with the Qalupalik of Inuit folklore and the Dzunukwa of the mythology of the Canadian Kwakwaka’wakw people, both of whom are associated with taking children.

Sources

“Amajuruq.” New Bestiary (Bestiary.us). https://www.bestiary.us/amajurjuk

Kuafu

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Tradition: Chinese Mythology
Alternative Names: 夸父, Kuafu-shi, 夸父氏, Clan of Kuafu
Category: Giant

The Myth

Kuafu is a giant in Chinese mythology, a grandson of Houtu, who became famous for his attempt to capture the Sun. Determined to catch the celestial body, he pursued it across the sky, following its course from east to west. His extraordinary strength and ambition allowed him to cross vast distances, but his quest exposed him to the Sun’s overwhelming heat and left him desperately thirsty.

During his pursuit, Kuafu drank the waters of the Yellow River and the Wei River, along with other rivers and lakes that lay along his path. Even these immense sources of water could not quench his thirst. He continued searching for more water, but before he could satisfy his need, he died of dehydration. His failed attempt to seize the Sun became one of the best-known stories of perseverance and the limits of mortal strength.

After Kuafu’s death, the wooden club he carried transformed into a vast forest of peach trees known as the Deng Forest. In another version of the legend, Kuafu himself became a mountain range. Both the peach forest and the mountain range are associated with the area of present-day Lingbao in China. His transformation ensures that his journey leaves a lasting mark on the landscape, even though he never achieved his original goal.

The name Kuafu can also refer to the Kuafu-shi, or Clan of Kuafu, whose people appear in accounts of ancient tribal conflicts. During the Battle of Banquan, the tribes allied with Chi You joined forces with the Kuafu tribe and the Sanmiao tribe to attack the tribe of the Yan Emperor, driving it into the lands of the Yellow Emperor. In modern Chinese usage, the expression Kuafu chasing the Sun (夸父追日) describes someone who pursues an ambitious goal with courage and determination, but overestimates their abilities and ultimately fails to achieve it.

Sources

“Kuafu.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed October 16, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuafu