The word 'ogres' is used sometimes to describe man-eating giants, monstrous both in shape and habits, but it may also be taken to mean a race of creatures of mortal size who are anthropophagous.

George MacDonald in Phantastes uses the word in this sense to describe the sinister woman with the pointed teeth who sits quietly reading and looks up from her book to advise the hero not to look in a certain cupboard, advice that has more the effect of a temptation than a warning. It is possible that the giant in 'Mallie Whuppie', the Scottish version of 'Hop O' My Thumb', was an ogre rather than a giant, for his children were certainly of ordinary mortal size, though they would have grown up with a hereditary taste for human flesh.

[Motif: G312]