The tale type is found throughout Europe, the Middle East, and parts of the Americas. It is clearly related to Homer’s story of Odysseus and Polyphemus, which itself seems to have derived from a folktale.
Five “Blinded Ogre” tales have been recorded from the Pontos. Three were recorded from Kerasounta by Ioannis Valavanis in the mid 1880s. One was recorded by Ioannis Parharides in Trebizond around the same time. The fifth shows up as a similar cave-dwelling ogre is tucked into a version of Santa’s “The Two Brothers” recorded by Simos Lianides in 1959. It was Mr. Lianides who first suggested the division of the Pontic tales into these two subtypes.
Pontic Subtype 1
As strong as the Homeric element is in In Pontic Greek folktales, there is a discernable Turkish influence. The Cyclops is called Tepegöz, plus he is described as being a giant with an eye on the very top of his head, so that he is forced to walk with his head bent forward. (The Greek Cyclops has a single eye in the center of his forehead and can walk upright.) Both stories in this subtype are marked by the travelers journeying by sea, a shipwreck, the Cyclops dragging them back into the cave, blocking the exit with a giant stone and seizing on their having stolen some of his milk and gruel or soup as an excuse for eating them, his the traveler's avoiding giving a real name, blinding the Cyclops with a heated spit, the Cyclops not wanting the other Cyclopes to possibly discover and eat the man, the man's dodging the Cyclops by scrambling out of the cave under a ram, and his flagging down a passing ship.
Pontic Subtype 2
In this subtype, the monster is an ogre and the traveler(s) encounter him on an overland journey. The ogre is defeated by blinding with a spit or scalding, or by plunging a dagger into the middle of his three nostrils. In two of the stories, sheep come into play. These stories are more complex than the Tepegoz tales. One falls into the genre of Tale of Xenitia rather than Magical Adventure.
- In the two 1880s versions, there is a traveler, a giant ogre, a blinding (with a spit or through scalding with water), and a ram involved in the escape. The two called “Tepekoz” hew closest to the Odyssey’s version: with a shipwreck, a companion who dies, a giant ogre who is blinded by the hero and fooled by being told a deceptive name, a village filled with similar ogres, and the escape beneath a large ram.
- In the One Who Blinded the Ogre, the traveler is an itinerant tinsmith rather than a sailor, and he and his companion are disgusted by being offered ogre’s food that has been cooked in human blood (the one who eats it is the one who dies).
- In the 1959 version, story is tucked into a larger tale of the Two Brothers. The brother is a traveler. He isn’t eaten by the ogre, but is weakened by letting the ogre drink his blood. He has to be rescued by St. George, who gives him a knife and tells him how to kill the monster, by stabbing him through the middle of his three nostrils.
- Consistent features: The ogre violates the norms of hospitality (using the travelers’ desperation for food as an excuse to kill and eat them, or sucking the blood of a guest), or sucking the blood of a worker literally or figuratively through overwork and underpayment) and must be blinded or killed either by stabbing (through eye or nostril) or scalding.