Kandanar Kelan was a yesteryear warrior. The story goes that once Kandanar Kelan was out hunting in the forest, the forest suddenly caught fire. Finding no other means of escape he climbed a tree. This tree was also the home of two snakes. The fire consumed the tree, the snakes and Kandanar Kelan. Vayanat Kulavan, another warrior god was passing by the burnt forest when he saw the image of Kandanar Kelan in the ashes. 

God with his bow, he traced out Kandanar Kelan and gave him life. The theyyam is an embodiment of the Kandanar Kelan and how he shows his anger towards the fire for burning him up. The theyyam very prominently has two snakes drawn on his chest that depict the snakes that perished with him in the fire.

The word Theyyam derives from ‘Daivam’, The Sanskrit word for ‘God’. Some scholars maintain that the Theyyams of north Malabar are a rare survival of some pre-Aryan non-Brahminical Dravidian religious system that was later absorbed into Hinduism's capacious embrace. Others argue that the Theyyams were tolerated as an acceptable safety valve to allow complaints against the misdeeds of the upper castes to be expressed in a ritualised and nonviolent manner. Either way, there is no doubt that today they are a stage on which the social norms of everyday life are inverted, and where for a short period of the year, position and power are almost miraculously transferred to the insignificant and powerless.