Polyphemus
This story is told within the frame of Latronis Filii, and is told in exchange for the life of the first of the bandit's sons.
A bandit chief, relating his adventures as a young man, tells of his band's attempts to rob a group of giants, who instead capture them. Together with nine companions, the bandit was held captive by a giant with an injured eye who rejects their offer of ransom, and instead eats the other robbers, one by one over the coming days. The bandit himself is, he claims, forced to eat his fellows too. On the day when he is to be eaten, he offers to heal the giant's eye in exchange for his life; when the giant agrees, he pours a vat of boiling ingredients over the giant's face, and the giant is blinded. He rolls about on the floor in pain and blindly tries to find the bandit. The bandit conceals himself amonst the giant's flock of sheep, and tries to escape out into the pasture when the flock is sent forth - but unluckily, the giants feels around for the fattest sheep to eat every day, and the bandit seems like a tasty morsel and is grabbed. He escapes, and is caught again, and escapes again; seven times this occurs, until the giant is disgusted and allows him to leave, tried of the chase. A stone's throw from the bandit stopped, celebrating his escape and mocking the giant for failing to catch him so many times. Grudgingly, the giant offers him a ring as a reward - but once the bandit puts it on, he cannot take it off, and cannot stop himself from shouting out 'I'm here! I'm here!'. Finally able to locate him, the giant lunges for him, but the bandit bites off his own finger, and runs away in silence.
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Nishimura notes some of the motif-index analogues to this narrative: TMI D1612.2.1: Magic ring compels would-be fugitive to keep calling out, “Here I am”; F531.1.1: Giant with one eye in the middle of the forehead; G100: Giant ogre, Polyphemus; G511: Ogre blinded; K521.1: Escape by dressing in animal (bird, human) skin; K602: “Noman”; K603: Escape under ram’s belly; K1011 = ATU 1135: Eye-remedy; ATU 1137: The blinded Ogre. Additional analogues are found in Grimms, and the Odyssey.
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| Polyphemus appears in the following versions and secondary versions
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| Polyphemus is narrated in the following occurrences
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| Polyphemus appears in the following manuscripts
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| This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database
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