Fachan

Lore & Background

John Francis Campbell, in *Popular Tales of the West Highlands*, describes the fachan 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 possesses a single tuft of hair on the top of its head, which Campbell says 'it were easier to take a mountain from the root than to bend that tuft.' Campbell suggests a possible influence from Arabic traditions such as the nasnas or shiqq, creatures described as 'half of a human being' that hop about on one leg with great agility.

Reader's Guide

Douglas Hyde, in his collection *Beside the Fire*, quotes Campbell's description and refers to an Irish manuscript depicting a similar monster: '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.' Hyde suggests 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). The fachan appears in lists of one-eyed creatures and monopods, and is sometimes associated with Fomorians.

Did You Know?

• The fachan is also called Direach Ghlinn Eitidh or Dithreach, meaning 'dwarf of Glen Etive'.
• John Francis Campbell noted that the fachan's single tuft of hair was so tough that 'it were easier to take a mountain from the root than to bend that tuft'.
• Douglas Hyde found a similar monster in an Irish manuscript, described as having a flail-club with chains and venomous apples.