InScottish folklore, thefachan (orfachin,[1] fachen, Direach Ghlinn Eitidh or Dithreach (dwarf ofGlen Etive)) is a monster orgiant described byJohn Francis Campbell inPopular Tales of the West Highlands as having a single eye in the middle of its face, a single hand protruding from its chest instead of arms, and a single leg emerging from its central axis. It has a single tuft of hair on the top of its head, regarding which Campbell says "it were easier to take a mountain from the root than to bend that tuft." Campbell draws attention to the possible influence of creatures fromArabic tradition such as theNesnas or Shikk, described as "half of a human being" and hopping about on one leg with great agility.[1]
Douglas Hyde quotes Campbell's description in his collection ofIrish folkloreBeside the Fire and refers to an Irish manuscript in which a similar monster is described:
He held a very thick ironflail-club in his skinny hand, and twenty chains out of it, and fifty apples on each chain of them, and a venomous spell on each great apple of them, and a girdle of the skins of deer and roebuck around the thing that was his body, and one eye in the forehead of his black-faced countenance, and one bare, hard, very hairy hand coming out of his chest, and one veiny, thick-soled leg supporting him and a close, firm, dark blue mantle of twisted hard-thick feathers, protecting his body, and surely he was more like unto devil than to man.[2]
Hyde suggests that both descriptions represent branches of a commonGaelic tradition, and that the wordfachan may be a diminutive of the Irishfathach (giant) and related to the Scottishfamhair (giant).[2]
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