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Giants and Dwarfs
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472 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1868
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November 30, 2021
“O that man should ape the attempts of a Titan with the capacity of a pigmy and the existence of an ephemeris!"
The general belief in men of enormous stature no doubt in part arose from the discovery in the earth of the bones and fossil remains of huge extinct fish.
Moses, who was himself ten cubits high, took an axe ten cubits long, and having leaped ten cubits in height, struck Og on the ankle-bone, so that he fell, and was slain.” According to this account, Og's ankle must have been forty-five feet high; but even this statement is surpassed by some others in the Targum, which represent that he was several miles in height; and his thigh-bone is said to have been twelve leagues long.
One of his bones is reputed to have long served for a bridge over a pit filled with other monstrous bones, mostly broken, and large teeth, weighing about half a pound each, and some of them almost as large as a man's fist; also a bone, supposed to be a thigh-bone, seventeen feet long, which, with the others, crumbled to dust as soon as it was exposed to the air.
In the thirteenth century there was a giant in Holland, named Nicholas Kieten, whose size was so prodigious that he carried men under his arms like little children, while actual children, too terrified to look him in the face, fled from his presence.
A skeleton, thirty feet long, was found by Paulus Leontinus in Sicily, in 1548; and another, thirty-three feet in length, in 1550. Afterwards another, thirty feet long, was dug up. All three skeletons fell to dust immediately after they were exposed to the air. Except for the teeth.
•Ludovicus Vives also mentions large teeth.
He says:
“In person they are large; on first sight they appear absolutely gigantic. They are larger than any other teeth I have seen. It may be supposed that they came from a mouth which exceeded one hundred and ten feet in length."
In the year 758, was found a skeleton, the head of which could scarcely be encompassed by the arms of two men joined together.
The skull of a giant found in Macedonia in September, 1691, held two hundred and ten pounds of corn.
There is a tradition that the first man was created on the top of a high mountain in Ceylon. His teeth were 6 inches long and "His chine bone could containe 3 pecks of oatmeale."
Certain angels sent by God to guard the earth were seduced from their allegiance by the beauty of the terrestrial women, by whom they had demoniacal sons three thousand cubits high.
In 1701 some large bones were found at Wrabness, near Harwich, in Essex. Fifteen paces from which was a large oak, commonly called the Giant's Oak. In digging there lately about this tree an entire giant's skeleton of a prodigious size was found. It measured ten Roman palms in length, and its teeth were exactly like those of a large horse. Near this skeleton was discovered another skeleton whose skull held a bushel of corn.
It was long thought that the Patagonians were a subaqueous race who used utensils that from their size it was supposed could have been used only by giants.
-Columella says, “ Germaniam natura de coravit altissimorum hominum exercitibus”
(Nature has made Germany remarkable for armies of very tall men).
-Vegetius says, “ Quid adversus Germanorum proceritatem nostra brevitas potuisset ?”
(What could our under-sized men have done against the tall Germans?).
-Hegesippus says, “ Germani magnitudinal corporum et contemtu mortis ceteris validiores"
(The Germans are superior to other nations by the largeness of their bodies and their contempt of death)
Augustine reports that a woman who came to Rome shortly before the sacking thereof by the Goths was of so giant-like a height, that she was far above the many who flocked to see her.
In 1550, some huge bones, said to have belonged to American giants a foot taller than anyone else, were shown at Mexico and other places.
Antonius, who was born in Syria during the reign of Theodosius, was seven feet seven inches high; but his feet were not proportionate to his body. He could strike out a horse’s teeth with a blow of his fist, and then break its thigh with a kick.
Sloane once had the vertebra of a whale sent to him by someone claiming it was a portion of a giant's backbone, which was assumed to have been a woman, and which was afterwards to be seen at the King's Head Tavern at Greenwich, but which he discovered to be a part of a sea monster, and so we have no reliable accounts of a race of giants ever having existed.
The general belief in men of enormous stature no doubt in part arose from the discovery in the earth of the bones and fossil remains of huge extinct fish.
Moses, who was himself ten cubits high, took an axe ten cubits long, and having leaped ten cubits in height, struck Og on the ankle-bone, so that he fell, and was slain.” According to this account, Og's ankle must have been forty-five feet high; but even this statement is surpassed by some others in the Targum, which represent that he was several miles in height; and his thigh-bone is said to have been twelve leagues long.
One of his bones is reputed to have long served for a bridge over a pit filled with other monstrous bones, mostly broken, and large teeth, weighing about half a pound each, and some of them almost as large as a man's fist; also a bone, supposed to be a thigh-bone, seventeen feet long, which, with the others, crumbled to dust as soon as it was exposed to the air.
In the thirteenth century there was a giant in Holland, named Nicholas Kieten, whose size was so prodigious that he carried men under his arms like little children, while actual children, too terrified to look him in the face, fled from his presence.
A skeleton, thirty feet long, was found by Paulus Leontinus in Sicily, in 1548; and another, thirty-three feet in length, in 1550. Afterwards another, thirty feet long, was dug up. All three skeletons fell to dust immediately after they were exposed to the air. Except for the teeth.
•Ludovicus Vives also mentions large teeth.
He says:
“In person they are large; on first sight they appear absolutely gigantic. They are larger than any other teeth I have seen. It may be supposed that they came from a mouth which exceeded one hundred and ten feet in length."
In the year 758, was found a skeleton, the head of which could scarcely be encompassed by the arms of two men joined together.
The skull of a giant found in Macedonia in September, 1691, held two hundred and ten pounds of corn.
There is a tradition that the first man was created on the top of a high mountain in Ceylon. His teeth were 6 inches long and "His chine bone could containe 3 pecks of oatmeale."
Certain angels sent by God to guard the earth were seduced from their allegiance by the beauty of the terrestrial women, by whom they had demoniacal sons three thousand cubits high.
In 1701 some large bones were found at Wrabness, near Harwich, in Essex. Fifteen paces from which was a large oak, commonly called the Giant's Oak. In digging there lately about this tree an entire giant's skeleton of a prodigious size was found. It measured ten Roman palms in length, and its teeth were exactly like those of a large horse. Near this skeleton was discovered another skeleton whose skull held a bushel of corn.
It was long thought that the Patagonians were a subaqueous race who used utensils that from their size it was supposed could have been used only by giants.
-Columella says, “ Germaniam natura de coravit altissimorum hominum exercitibus”
(Nature has made Germany remarkable for armies of very tall men).
-Vegetius says, “ Quid adversus Germanorum proceritatem nostra brevitas potuisset ?”
(What could our under-sized men have done against the tall Germans?).
-Hegesippus says, “ Germani magnitudinal corporum et contemtu mortis ceteris validiores"
(The Germans are superior to other nations by the largeness of their bodies and their contempt of death)
Augustine reports that a woman who came to Rome shortly before the sacking thereof by the Goths was of so giant-like a height, that she was far above the many who flocked to see her.
In 1550, some huge bones, said to have belonged to American giants a foot taller than anyone else, were shown at Mexico and other places.
Antonius, who was born in Syria during the reign of Theodosius, was seven feet seven inches high; but his feet were not proportionate to his body. He could strike out a horse’s teeth with a blow of his fist, and then break its thigh with a kick.
Sloane once had the vertebra of a whale sent to him by someone claiming it was a portion of a giant's backbone, which was assumed to have been a woman, and which was afterwards to be seen at the King's Head Tavern at Greenwich, but which he discovered to be a part of a sea monster, and so we have no reliable accounts of a race of giants ever having existed.
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