Mountain caves
The value of ingenuity against strength.
The Shepherd and Tartalo's Cave
Antimuño's escape
Quick facts
- • Place: Cuevas de Euskal Herria
- • Nombre en euskera: Artzaina eta Tartaloren kobazuloa
- • Seres implicados: Tartalo, Antimuno (pastor)
- • Motivos: escape, astucia, supervivencia, cíclope
- • Cronología: Tradición oral ancestral
The legend
A shepherd named Antimuno found himself trapped with his companions in Tartalo's cave, the terrible cannibal cyclops of Basque mythology. The monster blocked the entrance with a huge boulder and began his macabre feast.
Each day Tartalo seized one of the prisoners and devoured him, while fattening the others for future meals. Antimuno watched in horror, but his mind worked without rest, searching for a way to escape.
When his own turn came, the shepherd was ready. He heated an iron spit red-hot in the fire and, while Tartalo slept, drove the burning metal into the creature?s single eye. The blinded cyclops roared in pain and groped wildly for his attacker.
Antimuno hid beneath the skin of a sheep and, when Tartalo let the flock out while touching the back of each animal, the shepherd escaped on all fours among them. He had defeated brute force with cunning, earning a place in the legends of Euskal Herria.
The shepherd imprisoned in the lair of the hungry cyclops
Survival through cunning.
Solitary caves in Euskal Herria were often regarded as the dwelling places of cyclopes.
Days of observation before the exact moment to act
Pastoral zones where flocks could fall prey to Tartalo.
The fullest version of the Tartalo stories tells of a shepherd who enters the cyclops' cave while searching for a stray sheep and finds it apparently empty. Failing to recognise the bones scattered on the ground for what they are, he decides to rest beside the fire still burning there, and it is at that moment that the owner returns.
