The Real Folklore Behind Pan's Labyrinth: The Pale Man and the Faun

In 1944 Francoist Spain, a young girl named Ofelia escapes the brutality of her fascist stepfather by descending into an overgrown stone labyrinth behind an isolated rural mill. What follows in Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno) is widely regarded as one of the greatest fairy-tale achievements in cinematic history.

Del Toro did not adapt a single pre-existing story by Hans Christian Andersen or the Brothers Grimm. Instead, he functioned like a genuine medieval mythologist, weaving disparate threads of Japanese demonology, classical Mediterranean pastoral gods, and Catholic iconography into an original, visceral tapestry.

Let us dissect the two central figures of the labyrinth: the Pale Man and the enigmatic Faun.

The sequence in which Ofelia enters the banquet hall of the Pale Man (El hombre pálido) remains an unforgettable cinematic nightmare.

A gaunt, hairless humanoid with loose, sagging pale skin sits motionless before a luxurious table piled high with roasted meats, sweetmeats, and grapes. In front of him rests a silver platter bearing two human eyeballs. When Ofelia disobeys the warning and eats two grapes, the creature inserts the eyeballs into fleshy slits in his palms, raises his hands to his face, and chases her with agonizing speed.

The Folkloric Origin

While del Toro crafted the creature’s design with legendary actor Doug Jones, the concept of a creature with eyes in its hands originates directly in Japanese Yokai folklore: the Tenome (literally "Hand Eyes").

According to the Edo-period compendium Shokoku Hyakumonogatari (1677), a blind traveler was robbed and murdered by highwaymen on a deserted plain. His spirit was so overcome with resentment and fury at his own inability to see his attackers that he reincarnated as a nocturnal phantom whose eyes migrated to the palms of his hands, wandering graveyards to grasp and devour unwary travelers.

Del Toro combined this Japanese concept with the biblical imagery of the Massacre of the Innocents (seen in the frescos above the Pale Man’s banquet hall, depicting the creature devouring infants, mirroring Goya's painting Saturn Devouring His Son).

In English translations, the film was titled Pan’s Labyrinth, leading many viewers to assume the horned guardian is Pan, the Greek god of shepherds, pastures, and wild frenzy.

However, in the original Spanish dialogue, the creature is never called Pan; he is simply El Fauno (The Faun). Del Toro was deliberate in this distinction.

The Ancient Myth

In Roman mythology, Faunus was an indigenous Latin deity of the untamed woodlands, fertility, and prophecy. Unlike the later Greek Pan, who was often depicted as a hedonistic, flute-playing trickster, Faunus was older, wilder, and deeply morally ambiguous. He lived in the deep pine groves, spoke in cryptic whispers through rustling oak leaves, and was just as likely to cause sudden nocturnal terror (panic) as he was to grant agricultural abundance.

Del Toro’s Faun is visually designed from the earth itself: his skin is cracked like tree bark, his eyes are milky and ancient, and moss grows over his ram-like curving horns. He is neither benevolent nor wicked. He tests Ofelia without mercy, rewarding obedience and punishing carelessness.

The rule that Ofelia breaks—never eat food in the underworld—is the oldest narrative taboo in world mythology:

• Persephone: In Greek myth, Persephone is condemned to spend a third of each year in Hades because she tasted four pomegranate seeds offered by the lord of the dead.
• Celtic Fairy Lore: Irish and Scottish folklore strictly warns mortals who step into fairy mounds (sídhe) to never consume fairy wine or sweet cakes, as tasting otherworldly food forever binds a mortal’s soul to the fairy realm.

Guillermo del Toro understands folklore better than almost any working director. Rather than sanitizing ancient stories into predictable moral fables, he retains the primal, terrifying logic of ancient myth:

• The Pale Man: A brilliant fusion of Japanese Tenome anatomy with Goya's chthonic Saturn.
• The Faun: A masterclass in Roman pastoral animism.
• Folklore Fidelity Score: 10/10.

To explore similar woodland deities and horned nature wardens, read our dossiers on the Celtic forest god Cernunnos and the Slavic woodland king Leshy.