Saracen giant Ferrau is vulnerable only through his genitals, not his strength

Evidence

Ferrau is the Saracen giant most commonly featured in medieval romances. Alternatively called Ferraguto, Ferragus, Fernagu, and Ferracutus, the creature survives in some form into the modern period. Ferrau is a powerful monster that in several stories is finally killed by Roland or Orlando. In the Historia Karoli Magni et Rotholandi, Roland vanquishes Ferracutus. The source of the monster’s strength is his navel; only by attacking his sexual organs can he be destroyed. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 184

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the pattern in Berger/Doetsch where the monster’s defeat requires violating bodily boundaries — parallel to the demonic-carnal framing of Muslims in theology.
• QUESTION: The navel/genitals weakness motif is a specific bodily-anxiety projection — worth pulling the thread on what Christian anxiety of the Muslim body it encodes.