Fairy tales such as Jack the Giant Killer have formed the modern perception of giants as dimwitted and violent ogres, sometimes said to eat humans, while other giants tend to eat livestock. In more recent portrayals, like those of Jonathan Swift and Roald Dahl, some giants are both intelligent and friendly.
Literary and cultural analysis
Giants appear many times in folklore and myths. Representing the human body enlarged to the point of being monstrous, giants evoke terror and remind humans of their body's frailty and mortality. They are often portrayed as monsters and antagonists, but there are exceptions. Some giants intermingle with humans in a friendly way and can even be part of human families with their offspring being portrayed as regular humans where they are often referred to as half-giants.[3]
Folklorists and historians examine the role giants are assigned in regional geomythologies. For example, Fionn mac Cumhaill is said to have built the Giant's Causeway on the island of Ireland.[4] Per a 1965 examination in an American studies journal, "It is generally admitted today that Paul Bunyan was a synthetic figure conceived by advertising men rather than the spontaneous product of the folk mind, yet he has been adopted by the American people with enthusiasm...Paul and his blue ox Babe are supposed to have altered the appearance of the American continent; the animal's hoof prints became the lake beds of the Northwest and from its drinking trough spilled the Mississippi River."[5] Fossilized remains of ancient mammals and reptiles common to the Sivalik Hills of India may have influenced aspects of the Mahābhārata that tell of battles in which "hundreds of mighty, and sometimes gigantic, heroes, horses, and war elephants are said to have died."[6]
Archeology and paleontology
Claudine Cohen, in her 2002 book The Fate of the Mammoth, argued that the history of human interaction with fossil bones of prehistoric megafauna was heavily influenced by giant lore.[7] Per Cohen, the proto-scientific study of giants appears in several phases of human history: Herodotus reported that the remains of Orestes were found in Tegea; Pliny described a giant's skeleton found in Crete after an earthquake, and seemed to refer to evolution as the process by which giants become human-size over time; and Saint Augustine mentions what is believed to have been the fossilized molar of an ancient Elephantidae in his City of God, in a passage reflecting on the nature and meaning of the Noahacian deluge.[7] The academic consideration of giants continued through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and even the early modern period. Boccaccio devoted a passage of his Genealogies of the Pagan Gods to purported archeological discoveries in Sicily that he thought might be evidence of the historicity of The Odyssey's Polyphemus.[7]Rabelais created a wholly "fabricated giantology" for his 16th-century Gargantua and Pantagruel.[8] Massive bones found in 1613 in France were initially assigned to Teutobochus but the examinations of them by various physicians and their publication of diverging conclusions about the bones kicked off a "pamphlet war" between anatomists and surgeons of the day.[7] The discovery of the so-called Claverack Giant in colonial New York triggered giantological investigations by two important early American intellectuals, Cotton Mather and Edward Taylor.[9]
Genesis tells of the Nephilim before and after Noah's Flood. The word Nephilim is loosely translated as giants in some translations of the Hebrew Bible, but left untranslated in others. According to Genesis 7:23, the Nephilim were destroyed in the Flood, but Nephilim are reported after the Flood, including:
The Book of Numbers[10] includes the discouraging report by the spies sent by Moses into Canaan: "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are. (...) All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." The Book of Joshua, describing the actual conquest of Canaan in a later generation, makes reference to such people living there in (Joshua 14:12–15 and Joshua 15:13–14).
The Bible also tells of Gog and Magog, who later entered European folklore, and of the famous battle between David and the PhilistineGoliath. While Goliath is often portrayed as a giant in retellings of the Biblical narrative, he appears to be significantly smaller than other giants, biblical or otherwise. The Masoretic Text version of the Book of Samuel gives his height as six cubits and one span (possibly 313–372 centimetres (10ft 3in– 12ft 2in)),[15] while the Septuagint, the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the 2nd–1st-centuries BCE Dead Sea Scrolls give Goliath's height as four cubits and one span (possibly 216–258 centimetres (7ft 1in– 8ft 6in)).[16] For comparison, the Anakites are described as making the Israelites seem like grasshoppers.[17] See also Gibborim.
Josephus also described the Amorites as giants in his Antiquities of the Jews, circa 93CE, indicating that some sort of fossils may have been on display at that time:[18] "For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men."[19]
Hayk was known as the founder of the Armenian state. Hayk was part of a race of giants who helped construct the Tower of Babel. Ancient historian Movses Khorenatsi wrote, "Hayk was handsome and personable, with curly hair, sparkling eyes and strong arms. Among the giants he was the bravest and most famous, opponent of all who raised their hand to become absolute ruler over the giants and heroes."[21]
Mount Nemrut is known to have received its name from an Armenian tradition in which Nimrod was killed by an arrow shot by Hayk during a massive battle between two rival armies of giants to the south-east of Lake Van.[22]
Giants are rough but generally righteous characters of formidable strength living in the hills of the Basque Country. Giants stand for the Basque people reluctant to convert to Christianity who decide to stick to the old lifestyle and customs in the forest. Sometimes they hold the secret of ancient techniques and wisdom unknown to the Christians, like in the legend of San Martin Txiki, while their most outstanding feature is their strength. It follows that in many legends all over the Basque territory the giants are held accountable for the creation of many stone formations, hills and ages-old megalithic structures (dolmens, etc.), with similar explanations provided in different spots.
However, giants show different variants and forms, they are most frequently referred to as jentilak and mairuak, while as individuals they can be represented as Basajaun ("the lord of the forests"), Sanson (variation of the biblical Samson), Errolan (based on the Frankish army general Roland who fell dead at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass) or even Tartalo (a one-eyed giant akin to the Greek CyclopsPolyphemus).
In Bulgarian mythology, giants called ispolini inhabited the Earth before modern humans. They lived in the mountains, fed on raw meat and often fought against dragons. Ispolini were afraid of blackberries which posed a danger of making the giants trip and die, so they offered sacrifices to that plant.[23]
There are tales of giants in the northern Chilean port town of Caldera telling of giants who play with ships moving them from one port to another.[24] Tales of the same area also tells of giants who are able to crush humans with their feet and when laying down to sleep being so long as to reach from the mountains to the sea.[24] In some stories the giants are black humanoids or black bulls.[24] In southern Chile there are stories of giants said to belong to certain volcanoes such as Calbuco and Osorno.[24]
The mythical city of Tololo Pampa in northern Chile is said to be guarded by a giant known by various names including; Pata Larga, Gigante Minero and Minero Gigante.[25] The giant enters to the mountains to obtain riches to the princess of Tololo Pampa.[25] If a person manages to watch the giant while he works folklore says the person will be blessed with good luck for the rest of their life.[25]
Heracles faces the giant Antaios in this illustration on a calix krater, c. 515–510 BC.
In Greek mythology, the Gigantes (γίγαντες) were (according to the poet Hesiod) the children of Uranus (Ουρανός) and Gaia (Γαία) (spirits of the sky and the earth) where some depictions had them with snake-like legs. They were involved in a conflict with the Olympian gods called the Gigantomachy (Γιγαντομαχία) when Gaia had them attack Mount Olympus. This battle was eventually settled when the hero Heracles decided to help the Olympians. The Greeks believed some of them, like Enceladus, to lie buried from that time under the earth and that their tormented quivers resulted in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Herodotus in Book 1, Chapter 68, describes how the Spartans uncovered in Tegea the body of Orestes, which was seven cubits long — approximately 3.73m, or about 12feet 3inches. 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 12cm (4.7in) in diameter, while a normal adult patella is around 5cm (2.0in), suggesting Ajax may have been nearly 14feet (over 4m) tall.
The Cyclopes are also compared to giants due to their huge size (e.g.Polyphemus, son of Poseidon and Thoosa and nemesis of Odysseus in Homer's The Odyssey). The Elder Cyclopes were the children of Gaia and Uranus, and later made Zeus' "master thunderbolt", Poseidon's trident, and Hades' "helm of darkness", during the Titanomachy.
The Hecatoncheires are giants that have 100 arms and 50 heads who were also the children of Gaia and Uranus.
Other known giant races in Greek mythology include the six-armed Gegeines, the northern Hyperboreans, and the cannibalistic Laestrygonians.
Hindu
There are accounts stating humans grew to the size of giants during the Satya Yuga, the first of the four cyclical ages (yugas) in the Hindu reckoning of time.[26]
Jain
According to Jainism, there was a time when giants walked upon this earth.[27][28]Jain cosmology divides the worldly cycle of time into two parts or half-cycles, avasarpani (age of descending purity) and ascending (utsarpani).[29]
Division of time as envisaged by Jains. Human beings are said to be much taller than today in the first four aras of avasarpani and last four aras of utsarpani.
According to Jain texts, the height of Rishabhanatha, first tirthankara of the present half-cycle of time (avasarpani) was 500 dhanusa (longbow).[30] In avasarpani, as the cycle moves ahead, height of all humans and animals decreases. The following table depicts the six aras of avasarpini–
In Norse mythology, the jötnar (cognate with Old English: eotenas and English: ettin) are often opposed to the gods. While often translated as "giants", most are described as being roughly human-sized. Some are portrayed as huge, such as some frost giants (hrímþursar), fire giants (eldjötnar), and mountain giants (bergrisar). The jötnar are the origin of most of various monsters in Norse mythology (e.g. the Fenrisulfr) and in the eventual battle of Ragnarök, the giants will storm Asgard and fight the gods until the world is destroyed. Even so, the gods themselves were related to the jötnar by many marriages and descent; there are also jötnar such as Ægir who have good relationships with the gods and bear little difference in status to them. Odin, often regarded as the chief god, is the great-grandson of the jötunnYmir. Norse mythology also holds that the entire world of men was created from the flesh of Ymir, a giant of cosmic proportions whose name is considered by some scholars to share a root with Yama of Indo-Iranian mythology.
Trolls are beings that are sometimes very large. The name troll is applied to jötnar.
An old Icelandic legend says that two night-prowling giants, a man and a woman, were traversing the fjord near Drangey Island with their cow when they were surprised by the bright rays of daybreak. As a result of exposure to daylight, all three were turned into stone. Drangey represents the cow and Kerling (supposedly the female giant, the name means "old hag") is to the south of it. Karl (the male giant) was to the north of the island, but he disappeared long ago.
According to Northern Paiute oral history, the Si-Te-Cah or Sai'i are a legendary tribe of red-haired cannibalistic giants, the remains of which were allegedly found in 1911 by guano miners in Nevada's Lovelock Cave.[31] Furthermore, the Paiute creation story tells of "beautiful giants" who once lived between the Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains. After giving birth to a disfigured child, the giants treated the child so poorly that the Great Spirit responded by making the land hot and desolate and allowing enemies to conquer the giants. Only two giants survived: Paiute and his wife, both of whose skin became brown from eternally living in the hot desert.[32]
Roman
Several Jupiter-Giant-Columns have been found in Germania Superior. These were crowned with a statue of Jupiter, typically on horseback, defeating or trampling down a giant, often depicted as a snake. They are restricted to the area of south-western Germany, western Switzerland, French Jura, and Alsace.
In folklore from all over Europe, giants were believed to have built the remains of previous civilizations. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus thought giants had a hand in the creation of megalithic monuments. Similarly, the Old English poemThe Seafarer speaks of the high stone walls that were the work of giants. 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.
In the Netherlands, giants are often associated with creating or forming the landscape. For instance, two giants are said to have dug a channel, until they reached the village of Akkrum, where they had an argument and each went his own way, thus splitting the channel into two separate waterways. Others threw up hills, or became hills themselves when they died on the spot. In several legends, giants were evil beings that threatened, robbed and killed travellers or locals; such as Ellert and Brammert, in the province of Drenthe.
Medieval chivalry romances such as the Spanish Amadís de Gaula feature giants as antagonists, or, rarely, as allies. This is parodied famously in Cervantes' Don Quixote, when the title character attacks a windmill, believing it to be a giant. This is the source of the phrase tilting at windmills.
Tales of combat with giants were a common feature in the folklore of the British Isles. Celtic giants also figure in Breton and Arthurianromances. In Kinloch Rannoch, a local myth has a local hill resembling a giant named as The Sleeping Giant. Folklore says the giant will awaken only if a specific musical instrument is played near the hill. Giants are also prominent in Welsh folklore.
Many giants in English folklore were noted for their stupidity.[33] A giant who had quarrelled with the Mayor of Shrewsbury went to bury the city with dirt; however, he met a shoemaker, carrying shoes to repair, and the shoemaker convinced the giant that he had worn out all the shoes coming from Shrewsbury, and so it was too far to travel.[34] Other English stories told of how giants threw stones at each other, which was used to explain many great stones on the landscape.[35]
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in folklore, mythology, religion, and literature; these beliefs are reflected in media including comics, fiction, film, television, and video games. Belief in demons probably goes back to the Paleolithic age, stemming from humanity's fear of the unknown, the strange and the horrific. In ancient Near Eastern religions and in the Abrahamic religions, including early Judaism and ancient-medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity that may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. Large portions of Jewish demonology, a key influence on Christianity and Islam, originated from a later form of Zoroastrianism, and was transferred to Judaism during the Persian era.
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are the three brothers, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who made Zeus's weapon, the thunderbolt. In Homer's Odyssey, they are an uncivilized group of shepherds, the brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous for being the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.
A jötunn is a type of being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, they are often contrasted with gods and other non-human figures, such as dwarfs and elves, although the groupings are not always mutually exclusive. The entities included in jötunn are referred to by several other terms, including risi, þurs and troll if male and gýgr or tröllkona if female. The jötnar typically dwell across boundaries from the gods and humans in lands such as Jötunheimr.
An ogre is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, man-like being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world. They appear in many classic works of literature, and are most often associated in fairy tales and legend.
Og was, according to the Hebrew Bible and other sources, an Amorite king of Bashan who was slain along with his army by Moses and his men at the battle of Edrei. In Arabic literature he is referred to as ʿŪj ibn ʿAnāq.
The Nephilim are mysterious beings or humans in the Bible traditionally imagined as being of great size and strength, or alternatively beings of great power and authority. The origins of the Nephilim are disputed. Some, including the author of the Book of Enoch, view them as the offspring of rebellious angels and humans. Others view them as descendants of Seth and Cain.
A Watcher is a type of biblical angel. The word occurs in both plural and singular forms in the Book of Daniel, where reference is made to the holiness of the beings. The apocryphal Books of Enoch refer to both good and bad Watchers, with a primary focus on the rebellious ones.
Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common origins for myths from different cultures, and to support various psychoanalytical theories.
Anak is a figure in the Hebrew Bible. His descendants are mentioned in narratives concerning the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. According to the Book of Numbers, Anak was a forefather of the Anakim, a Rephaite tribe according to Deuteronomy 2:11. In their report, ten of the twelve Israelite spies associated the Anakim with the Nephilim of Genesis 6:1–4.
Sons of God is a phrase used in the Tanakh or Old Testament and in Christian Apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah where bene elohim are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies.
Ke'let are a type of evil spirit or ogre in Chukchi mythology, also sometimes known as Re'kkenit.
Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on Abrahamic culture in general. Christian mythology directly inherited many of the narratives from the Jewish people, sharing in common the narratives from the Old Testament. Islamic mythology also shares many of the same stories; for instance, a creation-account spaced out over six periods, the legend of Abraham, the stories of Moses and the Israelites, and many more.
Mythic humanoids are legendary, folkloric, or mythological creatures that are part human, or that resemble humans through appearance or character. Each culture has different mythical creatures that come from many different origins, and many of these creatures are humanoids. They are often able to talk and in many stories they guide the hero on their journey.
Giantesses are imaginary, gigantic women. They are widely believed to be mythological by the humans of modern-day, since the term "giantess" is so generic, it seems possible to describe female giants not native to Earth which fall under the very forgiving criteria as giantesses. This includes the female giant: either a mythical being, such as the Amazons of Greek mythology, resembling a woman of superhuman size and strength or a human woman of exceptional stature, often the result of some medical or genetic abnormality.
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology and stemming from Proto-Germanic folklore, Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities, beings, and heroes derived from numerous sources from both before and after the pagan period, including medieval manuscripts, archaeological representations, and folk tradition. The source texts mention numerous gods such as the thunder-god Thor, the raven-flanked god Odin, the goddess Freyja, and numerous other deities.
References
↑ Robert, of Gloucester; Wright, William Aldis (1887). The metrical chronicle of Robert of Gloucester. University of California Libraries. London: Printed for H.M. Stationery off., by Eyre and Spottiswoode. p.25.
↑ γίγαντες, Georg Autenrieth, A Homeric Dictionary, on Perseus Digital Library
1 2 3 4 Cohen, Claudine (2002). The Fate of the Mammoth. University of Chicago Press. pp.xiv (prescientific analysis of megafauna fossils), 23–26 (historiography of giant lore), 27 (Boccaccio), 31 (1613 France). ISBN9780226112923.
↑ Smith, P. J. (2019). Parody and Appropriation of the Past in the Grandes Chroniques Gargantuines and in Rabelais’s Pantagruel (1532). In K. A. E. Enenkel & K. A. Ottenheym (Eds.), The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture (Vol. 60, pp. 167–186). Brill. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctvbqs5nk.14
↑ Loud, Llewellyn L.; M. R. Harrington (15 February 1929). "Lovelock Cave". University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology (University of California at Berkeley) 25 (1): 1–183.
↑ Greene, Michael S (2005). Nevada: A Journey of Discovery. Utah: Gibbs Smith. p.39. ISBN1-58685-139-X.
Lyman, Robert R., Sr. (1971). Forbidden Land: Strange Events in the Black Forest. Vol. 1. Coudersport, PA: Potter Enterprise.* Dakhloul / Fakih debate, HHUMC (2013). Are Giants Just a Hoax?. Saida, Lebanon: Archive
Schäfke, Werner (2015). ″Dwarves, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants″. In Albrecht Classen (Ed.): Handbook of medieval culture. Fundamental aspects and conditions of the European middle ages, vol. 1. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp.347–383.
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