Giants. A giant (Gr. gigas) is an individual whose stature and bulk exceed those of his species or race generally. Until the beginning of the 19th century it was universally believed that giants, of a size far exceeding those who are exhibited in our times, formerly existed, either as nations or as individual specimens. This belief was based on the asserted discovery of colossal human bones, on supposed scriptural evidence, and on the evidence of various ancient and medieval authors.
A reference to the first volume of Cuvier's Osssements Fossiles will show that the bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, mastodons, &c. have been exhibited and accepted as evidence of prehistoric giants. Even so good a naturalist as Buffon fell into this popular delusion, and figured the bones of an elephant as the remains of human giants. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in his Histoire des Anomalies de l'Organisation, notices several of the most famous of these cases.
The Scripture evidence, when carefully examined, does not amount to much. The Hebrew words nephilim and gibborim, which are translated giants in the Authorised Version ('nephilim' and 'mighty men' in the Revised Version), were apparently not giants in our sense of the word. The height of Og, king of Bashan, is not given; we are only told the length of his bed. The height of Goliath is put at six and a half cubits, but by Josephus and the Septuagint at four cubits and a span—say 8 feet 9 inches. The Anakim and other tall races referred to in Scripture need not have been of superhuman size.
The classical evidence is abundant, but obviously untrustworthy. Thus, besides Homer's allusions to cyclopes, giants, Polyphemus, and like legendary races or persons, Plutarch relates that Sertorius had the grave of Antæus, at Tingis in Mauretania, opened, and 'finding there his body, full 60 cubits long, was infinitely astonished, ordered the tomb to be closed, gave his confirmation to the story, and added new honours to the memory of the giant.' Pliny reports that an earthquake in Crete disclosed the bones of a giant 46 cubits in length, who was held by some to be Orion, and by others Otus. Descending to more certain evidence, there is no doubt that a height of between 8 and 9 feet, and probably of more than 9 feet, has been attained. There is a skeleton in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, 8 feet 6 inches in height; that of Charles Byrne (1761-83), in the museum of the College of Surgeons of England, is 8 feet 2 inches; and that of a giant in the museum at Bonn is 8 feet; and the actual body with the soft parts attached was probably two or three inches longer than the skeleton. Byrne, for example, measured 8 feet 4 inches after his death, as we find recorded in the Annual Register, vol. xxvi. p. 209. He has often been confounded with Patrick Cotter or O'Brien (1761-1806), whose height is variously given at 7 feet 10 inches, and 8 feet 7 inches. The Scottish giant in the service of Frederick William I. of Prussia measured 8 feet 3 inches, and was notable in his regiment of giants. The Chinese giant Chang claimed to have grown from 7 feet 8 inches to 8 feet between his first appearance in London (1865) and his second (1880). The Austrian Josef Winkelmaier (1865-87) was 8 feet 9 inches. Popular belief seems right in treating the Patagonians as the tallest race of men; the mean height being ascertained to be about 5 feet 11 inches.
It appears (1) that giants are of rarer occurrence than dwarfs; (2) that giants are usually of a lymphatic temperament, and of a very delicate complexion, often deformed, and almost always badly proportioned; that their muscles are flabby, and their voice weak; while dwarfs are often perfectly well proportioned, and are strong for their size; (3) that giants are never long-lived—Byrne died at twenty-two, Magrath at twenty, Winkelmaier at twenty-two—while dwarfs seem to attain the full ordinary period of human existence; (4) that while giants usually exhibit a want of activity and energy, and are feeble both in body and mind, dwarfs are in general lively, active, and irascible. We know little of the causes which occasion the excessive development or the arrested growth on which the production of giants and dwarfs depends. See DEFORMITIES.
Mythological Giants and Dwarfs.—Giants play a part in the mythology of almost all nations of Aryan descent. The Greeks, who represented them as beings of monstrous size, with hideous countenances, and having the tails of dragons, placed their abode in volcanic districts, whither they were fabled to have been banished after their unsuccessful attempt upon heaven, when the gods, with the assistance of Hercules, imprisoned them under Ætna and other volcanoes. Their reputed origin, like the places of their abode, points to the idea of the mysterious electrical and volcanic convulsions of nature, which they obviously typify; and, in accordance with this view, they are said to have been of mingled heavenly and earthly descent, and to have sprung from the blood that fell from the slain Ouranos upon the earth, Ge, which was their mother. In the cosmogony of the northern nations, giants occupy a far more important place than the Greeks assigned to them, for here the first created being was the giant Ymir, called also 'Aurgelmir' or 'the ancient Chaos,' the progenitor of the Frost-giants (Hrimthursar), among whom dwelt the All-Father before the creation of heaven and earth. How Ymir the first giant arose, and what came of the giants and their home Jotunheim, is an integral part of Scandinavian Mythology (q.v.). The giants have been held to be personifications of the powers of nature, of barbarism in conflict with a more civilised régime, and of heathen powers in conflict with Christianity. Even the boys' tale of Jack the Giant-killer has been held to have originated in the struggle of the Christian Welsh with the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Swift's Broddingnagians are the best known of modern imaginary giants. See Wood's Giants and Dwarfs (1868); Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871); Bollinger, Zwerg- und Riesewuchs (1884); and Max. Mayer, Die Giganten und Titanen in der Antiken Sage und Kunst (1889).