Fachan

In Scottish folklore, the fachan (or fachin,[1] fachen, Direach Ghlinn Eitidh or Dithreach (dwarf of Glen Etive)) is a monster or giant described by John Francis Campbell in Popular 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.

Campbell draws attention to the possible influence of creatures from Arabic tradition such as the Nesnas 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 of Irish folklore Beside the Fire and refers to an Irish manuscript in which a similar monster is described: He held a very thick iron flail-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 common Gaelic tradition, and that the word fachan may be a diminutive of the Irish fathach (giant) and related to the Scottish famhair (giant).

[2] This article relating to a Celtic myth or legend is a stub.