Laestrygonians

The Laestrygonians (or "Laestrygones", "Laistrygones", "Laistrygonians", "Lestrygonians") are a tribe of giant cannibals from ancient Greek mythology. Odysseus, the main character of Homer's Odyssey, visited them during his journey back home to Ithaca. The giants ate many of Odysseus' men and destroyed eleven of his twelve ships by launching rocks from high cliffs. Odysseus' ship was not destroyed since it was hidden in a cove near shore. Everyone on Odysseus' ship survived.

In the Odyssey

:"His company, with a dozen ships, arrives at "the rocky stronghold of Lamos: Telepylus, the city of the Laestrygonians."

Lamos is not mentioned again, perhaps being understood as the founder of the city. In this land, a man who could do without sleep could earn double wages; once as a herdsman of cattle and another as a shepherd, since they worked by night as they did by day. The ships entered a harbor surrounded by steep cliffs, with a single entrance between two headlands. The captains took their ships inside and made them fast close to one another, where it was dead calm. Odysseus kept his own ship outside the harbor, moored to a rock. He climbed a high rock to reconnoiter, but could see nothing but some smoke rising from the ground. He sent two of his company with an attendant to investigate the inhabitants. The men followed a road and eventually met a young woman, who said she was a daughter of Antiphates, the king, and directed them to his house. However when they got there they found a gigantic woman, the wife of Antiphates who promptly called her husband, who immediately left the assembly of the people and upon arrival snatched up one of the men and started to eat him. The other two men ran away, but Antiphates raised an outcry, so that they were pursued by thousands of Laestrygonians, giants, not men. They threw vast rocks from the cliffs, smashing the ships, and speared the men like fish. Odysseus made his escape with his single ship due to the fact that it was not trapped in the harbor; the rest of his company was lost. The surviving crew went next to the island of Circe."