Giant (mythology)
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The mythology and legends of many different cultures include mythological creatures of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed example: the gigantes of Greek mythology. In various Indo-European mythologies, gigantic peoples are featured as primeval races associated with chaos and the wild nature, and they are frequently in conflict with the gods, be they Olympian or Norse. There are also historical stories featuring giants in the Old Testament, perhaps most famously Goliath. They are attributed superhuman strength and physical proportions, a long lifespan, and thus a great deal of knowledge as well. Yet, they are weak in both morals and imagination. Fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk have formed our modern perception of giants as stupid and violent monsters, frequently said to eat humans, and especially children. However, in some more recent portrayals, like those of Oscar Wilde, the giants are both intelligent and friendly.
Giants of the Bible
The Bible mentions an ancient race called the nephilim, which has often been translated as "giants." Genesis states that:
- There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown. (Gen. 6:4 KJV)
The Anakites, who "come from the Nephilim" (Numbers 13:28-33), the Emites (Deuteronomy 2:10), and the Rephaites (Joshua 12:4) were giants living in the Promised Land. The Bible also records the famous strife between David and the giant Goliath, ending with the defeat of the latter. Goliath was "six cubits and a span" in height--over nine feet tall (1 Samuel 17:4).
Gog and Magog are usually considered to be giants, and are also found in the folklore of Britain.
Giants in Greek Mythology
In Greek mythology the gigantes (γίγαντες) were (according to the poet Hesiod) the children of Uranos (Ουρανός) and Gaea (Γαία) (The Heaven and the Earth). They were involved in a conflict with the Olympian gods called the Gigantomachy (Γιγαντομαχία), which was eventually settled when the hero Heracles decided to help the Olympians. The Greeks believed some of them, like Enceladus, to lay buried from that time under the earth, and that their tormented quivers resulted in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Greek mythology also features the cyclopes (κύκλωπες) —well remembered for their encounter with Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey—giants (though not gigantes) with only one eye. The titans were as well often imagined to be of great size and strength, whence the word titanic.
Herodotus in Book 1, Chapter 68, describes how the Spartans uncovered in Tegea the body of Orestes which was seven cubits long -- around 10 feet. In his book The Comparison of Romulus with Theseus Plutarch describes how the Athenians uncovered the body of Theseus, which was of more than ordinary size. The kneecaps of Ajax were exactly the size of a discus for the boy's pentathlon," wrote Pausanias. A boy's discus was about twelve centimeters in diameter, while a normal adult patella is around five centimeters, suggesting Ajax may have been around 14 feet tall.
Giants in Norse Mythology
In Germanic mythologies – of which Norse mythology, due to its extensive Icelandic sources, is the only one well recorded – the giants (jötnar in Old Norse, a cognate with ettin) are often opposed to the gods. They come in different classes, such as frost giants (hrímþursar) fire giants (eldjötnar) and mountain giants (bergrisar). The giants are the origin of most of the monsters in Norse mythology (e.g. the Fenrisulfr), and in the eventual, apocalyptic battle of Ragnarök the giants will storm Asgard, the home of the gods in Heaven, and defeat them in war, thus bringing about the end of the world. Even so, the gods are themselves related to the giants by many marriages, and there are giants such as Ægir, Mímir and Skaði, who bear little difference in status to them. Norse mythology also holds that the entire world of men was once created from the flesh of Ymir—a giant of cosmic proportions, by some considered to share a root with the name Yama of Indo-Iranian mythology.
A bergrisi appears as a supporter on the coat of arms of Iceland.
Giants in Other European Legends
In folklore from all over Europe, giants were believed to have built the remains of previous civilizations. Saxo Grammaticus, for example, argues that giants had to exist, because nothing else would explain the large walls, stone monuments, and statues that we know were the remains of Roman construction. Similarly, the Old English poem Seafarer speaks of the high stone walls that were the work of giants. Even natural geologic features such as the massive basalt columns of the Giant's causeway on the coast of Northern Ireland were attributed to construction by giants. Giants provided the least complicated explanation for such artifacts.
In Basque mythology, giants appear as jentilak and mairuak (Moors), and were said to have raised the dolmens and menhirs. After Christianization, they were driven away, and the only remaining one is Olentzero, a coalmaker that brings gifts on Christmas Eve.
Tales of combat with giants were a common feature in the folklore of Wales and Ireland. Some Irish giants such as Fionn mac Cumhail (Finn McCool) were considered benevolent and well liked by humans. Celtic giants also figure in Breton and Arthurian romances, and from this source they spread into the heroic tales of Torquato Tasso, Ludovico Ariosto, and their follower Edmund Spenser. The giant Despair appears in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
Giants figure in a great many fairy tales and folklore stories, such as Jack and the Beanstalk, The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body, Nix Nought Nothing, Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon, Young Ronald, and Paul Bunyan. Ogres and trolls are humanoid creatures, sometimes of gigantic stature, that occur in various sorts of European folklore. An example of another folklore giant is Rübezahl, a kind giant in German folklore who lived in the Giant Mountains (nowadays on the Czech-Polish border).
Giants in North America
Aside from mythology and folklore, mysterious remains of giants have been found in America. Giants are usually classified as human-like remains that are 7'-5" or more in height. The book Forbidden Land by Robert Lyman recounts the following finds:
A decayed human skeleton claimed by eyewitnesses to measure around 3.28 metres (10 feet 9 inches tall), was unearthed by labourers while ploughing a vineyard in November 1856 in East Wheeling, now in West Virginia.
A human skeleton measuring 3.6 metres (12 foot) tall was unearthed at Lompock Rancho, California, in 1833 by soldiers digging in a pit for a powder magazine. The specimen had a double row of teeth and was surrounded by numerous stone axes, carved shells and porphyry blocks with abstruse symbols associated with it.
Several mummified remains of red haired humans ranging from 2-2.5 metres (6.5 feet to over 8 feet) tall were dug up at Lovelock Cave, (70 miles) north-east of Reno, Nevada, by a guano mining operation. These bones substantiated legends by the local Paiute Indians regarding giants which they called Si-Te-Cahs. For some reason scientists did not seem to want to investigate these finds further so many of the bones were lost. Fortunately one of the giant Lovelock skulls is still preserved today. It measures almost 30cm (1 foot) tall and resides along with other various Lovelock artefacts in the Humboldt Museum in Winnemucca, Nevada. Some of these artefacts can also be found in the Nevada State Historical Society's museum at Reno.
Aside from Forbidden Lands, we can find other historical information on the remains of giants.
A 9' 8" skeleton was excavated from a mound near Brewersville, Indiana (Indianapolis News, Nov 10, 1975).
In Clearwater Minnesota, the skeletons of seven giants were found in mounds. These had receding foreheads and complete double dentition.
A mound near Toledo, Ohio, held 20 skeletons, seated and facing east with jaws and teeth "twice as large as those of present day people," and besides each was a large bowl with "curiously wrought hieroglyphic figures." (Chicago Record, Oct. 24, 1895; cited by Ron G. Dobbins, NEARA Journal, v13, fall 1978).
Other examples of giants
- The Brobdingnagians, from the book Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.
- Patagons of Patagonia in South America, giants claimed to have been seen by Ferdinand Magellan and his crew.
- One of the stone statues which Aslan revives in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' is a giant called Rumblebuffin, who then takes part in the final battle with the White Witch.
- Hagrid in the Harry Potter series is a half-giant, as is Olympe Maxime; Hagrid's half-brother, Grawp, is a giant.
- The 16 Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus
- Saltheart Foamfollower, the First of the Search (Gossamer Glowlimn), Grimmand Honninscrave, Cable Seadreamer, and Pitchwife are all significant Giants in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (First and Second), a six-volume fantasy series published from 1977-1983 by Stephen R. Donaldson.
- In the US, the Pacific NW region is said to once be home to a race of giants.
- In the Spiderwick Chronicles, especially in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, giants are incredibly large beings, ancestral to ogres and spending most of their adult lives in hibernation, which, apparently, allows vegetation to accumulate on themselves to disguise the giants as large hills.
Names/Races of Giants
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