---
title: Ojáncano
description: A malevolent mythological beast from Cantabrian tradition.
author:
  name: Graciela Paula Caldeiro
  url: http://graciela-caldeiro.idoneos.com
canonical: https://mitosyleyendas.idoneos.com/en/bestiario_mitologico/ojancano/
source: en/bestiario_mitologico/ojancano/index.md
---

Also known as Ojancanu, this is a giant from Cantabrian tradition who embodies all evil, negativity, and savagery. This being has ten fingers on each foot and each hand. Its face is round and yellowish. It has a long, deep-red beard and a single eye in the middle of its forehead. The eye, which is bright, is surrounded by pale wrinkles and small blue spots.

It is said that when it wishes to cause harm in villages, it can transform itself into an elderly beggar and asks for shelter in any house, disappearing at dawn after having killed cows, sheep, and hens. At other times it steals savings and other objects from homes. In other versions, it transforms into a sturdy tree at the side of roads, and when a cart loaded with firewood or other cargo passes by, it collapses onto the oxen. Other stories tell of the abduction of beautiful shepherdesses and the destruction of huts.

The Ojáncano's wife surpasses him in ugliness and wickedness. Whereas the Ojáncano has only one eye, its female counterpart has two, though they are always covered in rheum. She also has the tusks of a wild boar and breasts so long that she can throw them over her shoulders. The Ojáncana devours everything she encounters in her path.

The only way to defeat them is to kill them, which is only possible by pulling out a white hair that the Ojáncano has hidden among its red beard. According to tradition, when it grows old enough, its own kind murder it, cut open its belly, and share out what it carries inside, burying it beside an oak tree. From the Ojáncano's corpse, after nine months, enormous worms emerge, which the Ojáncana suckles on the blood from her breasts until, upon reaching three years of age, they transform into Ojáncanos and Ojáncanas, beginning the cycle of wickedness all over again.