Dead Hand

Dead Hand is a mini-boss from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Dead Hand is a horrifying monster haunting the Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple. The seemingly disembodied hands that appear during the boss battle are supposedly entirely separate entities and not part of Dead Hand, as revealed in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest, where both Dead Hand and the disembodied hands appear without the other.

Dead Hand consists of a large amount of corpse-like hands suspended atop of very long arms, hence the name. Its white skin is patched with blue and red and its clawed fingers are stained red as well. These hands are connected under the grave dirt of its lair to its main body, which is free to move about under the dirt as well as on the surface, though its lower portions are never seen. Its central body is a flabby, almost tumorous mass with two, tiny, handless arms that terminate in sharp red spines, and a head with a giagantic, gaping mouth armed with huge teeth. Its eyes are black and expresionless, and its jaw can open dumbfoundingly wide.

Upon defeat, the Dead Hand yields the Lens of Truth and Hover Boots in the Bottom of the Well and Shadow Temple, respectively.

Battle
Link first had to coax the creature to attack, as its limbs were invulnerable. When he wandered too close to a hand, it would snare its prey and hold them in place while its body erupted from the grave dirt. It would slowly wriggle towards him, and he would have to struggle to escape the grip before it delivered a horrific bite.

In the Master Quest version, Link had to battle a Dead Hand that did not rely on its arms; which actually left it oblivious to approaching prey. In order to defeat the Dead Hand, Link had to use the Lens of Truth to find out exactly where the creature had buried itself, and force it out by dropping a Bomb or Bomb Flower right on top of it, though firing an arrow on any Bomb Flower planted would result in at least half, if not all exploding, meaning no matter where it was underground, it will definitely rise.

Whether snared or not, it would still try to bite Link. It was almost impervious to weaponry outside of Link's sword, and it kept its head pointed upwards as it moved into an attacking possition. However, when it bent over to attack, Link would swing his sword and slice its face many times before it turned around and retreated to the safety of its hiding place (it is possible to prevent it from burrowing but it won't move from the spot it tried to burrow, and dirt will surround it). Eventually it could take no more damage and died, toppling over and letting out one last dying groan.

Etymology

 * The Dead Hand is likely based on zombies of classic literature. Further supporting this is that the German translation of the Dead Hand is "Brain-Feeder" (free translation).