The Book of Dede Korkut (by the title of the Dresden manuscript: Kitāb-ı Dedem Ḳorḳud Alā Lisān-ı Tāife-i Oġuzân; by the title of the Vatican manuscript: Hikâyet-i Oğuznâme, Kazan Beğ ve Gayrı) comprises the oldest known epic tales of the Oghuz Turks. The tales carry the morals and values important to the social ways of life and pre-Islamic beliefs of the nomadic Turkic peoples. The book's legendary narration is part of the cultural heritage of peoples of Oghuz origin, foremost among them Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Originally an oral literary product, it was committed to writing by an anonymous author in the 14th or 15th century.
The Dresden manuscript of the text consists of twelve epic tales, while the Vatican manuscript consists of six epic tales and a preface. The tales it contains are products of an oral tradition passed down through history from tongue to tongue and from narrator to narrator. Because the tales were transmitted by word of mouth, they departed from their original form. It is estimated that they were committed to writing in the second half of the 15th century. It is a source that provides information on a great many subjects, from the Oghuz way of life to their economy, from their beliefs to their attire, and from their diet to the natural environment in which they lived. Three manuscript copies survive to the present day. Until 2018, when the Gonbad manuscript was discovered, only two manuscripts were known — one in the Vatican and one in Dresden.
It is possible to draw parallels between some of the tales in the Book of Dede Korkut and Western mythology. In particular, the Tepegöz narrative recalls the story of the one-eyed giant Cyclops in the Odyssey. In both texts there is a powerful giant that harms people, and the hero manages to defeat this being not by direct force but rather by using his wits.
However, despite these similarities, the cultural contexts to which the narratives belong are different. The tale in Dede Korkut reflects the values, way of life, and understanding of heroism of Oghuz society. For this reason, the similarities in question can be explained less by direct influence than by different societies producing similar fears and narrative patterns.
The Book of Dede Korkut is a compendium of epic Oghuz tales. The greater part of the twelve tales it contains first emerged between the 10th and 11th centuries along the banks of the Syr Darya (Seyhun) River, the ancient homeland of the Oghuz, and came to the Near East in the 11th century with the Oghuz conquest of northern Iran, the South Caucasus, and Anatolia. The tale of Bamsı Beyrek, also known as "Alpamysh," is dated as far back as the 5th–6th centuries.