Skull Woods

So I was playing through link to the past today and I thought of something I hadn't really thought of before, and that was when I was in skull woods I wondered what the skulls were from.



Not only that but this guy especially 


I've played a good amount of Zelda games and this thing doesn't match anything I've ever seen, do you guys have any idea what these guys are? Did they ever puzzle you at all when playing through?

This is an easy one...

The skulls belong to huge giant people who once lived in Hyrule. They used to serve Gannon, but they all have since died of old age.

As for the strange entrance to the skull forest dungeon........ that's actually the skull from an old mutant elephant! And when you use the fire rod, you're blowing his trunk and snout off!