This page will collect brief passages recording classical, medieval, and early modern authors' experiences with so-called giants. It's a work in progress, and I will be adding to it as time allows.
Herodotus, Histories (c. 420 BCE)
1.68. Lichas then, being one of these, discovered it in Tegea by means both of fortune and ability. For as there were at that time dealings under truce with the men of Tegea, he had come to a forge there and was looking at iron being wrought; and he was in wonder as he saw that which was being done. The smith therefore, perceiving that he marvelled at it, ceased from his work and said: "Surely, thou stranger of Lacedemon, if thou hadst seen that which I once saw, thou wouldst have marvelled much, since now it falls out that thou dost marvel so greatly at the working of this iron; for I, desiring in this enclosure to make a well, lighted in my digging upon a coffin of seven cubits in length; and not believing that ever there had been men larger than those of the present day, I opened it, and I saw that the dead body was equal in length to the coffin: then after I had measured it, I filled in the earth over it again." He then thus told him of that which he had seen; and the other, having thought upon that which was told, conjectured that this was Orestes according to the saying of the Oracle, forming his conjecture in the following manner:--whereas he saw that the smith had two pairs of bellows, he concluded that these were the winds spoken of, and that the anvil and the hammer were the stroke and the stroke in return, and that the iron which was being wrought was the trouble laid upon trouble, making comparison by the thought that iron has been discovered for the evil of mankind. Having thus conjectured he came back to Sparta and declared the whole matter to the Lacedemonians; and they brought a charge against him on a fictitious pretext and drove him out into exile. So having come to Tegea, he told the smith of his evil fortune and endeavoured to hire from him the enclosure, but at first he would not allow him to have it: at length however Lichas persuaded him and he took up his abode there; and he dug up the grave and gathered together the bones and went with them away to Sparta. From that time, whenever they made trial of one another, the Lacedemonians had much the advantage in the war; and by now they had subdued to themselves the greater part of Peloponnesus besides.
9.83. However, in later time after these events [i.e. the Battle of Platea in Boetia] many of the Plataians also found chests of gold and of silver and of other treasures; and moreover afterwards this which follows was seen in the case of the dead bodies here, after the flesh had been stripped off from the bones; for the Plataians brought together the bones all to one place:--there was found, I say, a skull with no suture but all of one bone, and there was seen also a jaw-bone, that is to say the upper part of the jaw, which had teeth joined together and all of one bone, both the teeth that bite and those that grind; and the bones were seen also of a man five cubits high.
Translated by George Macaulay.
9.83. However, in later time after these events [i.e. the Battle of Platea in Boetia] many of the Plataians also found chests of gold and of silver and of other treasures; and moreover afterwards this which follows was seen in the case of the dead bodies here, after the flesh had been stripped off from the bones; for the Plataians brought together the bones all to one place:--there was found, I say, a skull with no suture but all of one bone, and there was seen also a jaw-bone, that is to say the upper part of the jaw, which had teeth joined together and all of one bone, both the teeth that bite and those that grind; and the bones were seen also of a man five cubits high.
Translated by George Macaulay.
Book of the Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 16:7 (c. 200-175 BCE)
He (God) was not pacified toward the old giants, who fell away in the strength of their foolishness.
King James Version
King James Version
Pseudo-Eupolemus (c. 158 BCE), in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 9.17 (c. 313 CE)
Eupolemus in his book Concerning the Jews of Assyria says that the city Babylon was first founded by those who escaped from the Deluge; and that they were giants, and built the tower renowned in history. But when this had been overthrown by the act of God, the giants were dispersed over the whole earth. And in the tenth generation, he says, in Camarina a city of Babylonia, which some call the city Uria (and which is by interpretation the city of the Chaldees), in the thirteenth generation Abraham was born, who surpassed all men in nobility and wisdom, who was also the inventor of astronomy and the Chaldaic art, and pleased God well by his zeal towards religion. By reason of God’s commands this man came and dwelt in Phoenicia, and pleased their king by teaching the Phoenicians the changes of the sun and moon and all things of that kind.
Translated by E. H. Gifford.
Translated by E. H. Gifford.
Strabo, Geography 17.3.11 (c. 1st century BCE)
And Gabinius also, the Roman historian, does not abstain from telling marvellous stories of Maurusia; for example, he tells a story of a tomb of Antaeus near Lynx, and a skeleton sixty feet in length, which, he says, Sertorius exposed to view, and then covered again with earth.
Translated by H. L. Jones.
Translated by H. L. Jones.
Philo, On Giants 58-61 (before 50 CE)
58 “And there were giants on the earth in those Days.” (Gen. 6:4) Perhaps some one may here think, that the lawgiver is speaking enigmatically and alluding to the fables handed down by the poets about giants, though he is a man as far removed as possible from any invention of fables, and one who thinks fit only to walk in the paths of truth itself; 59 in consequence of which principle, he has banished from the constitution, which he has established, those celebrated and beautiful arts of statuary and painting, because they, falsely imitating the nature of the truth, contrive deceits and snares, in order, through the medium of the eyes, to beguile the souls which are liable to be easily won over. 60 Therefore he utters no fable whatever respecting the giants; but he wishes to set this fact before your eyes, that some men are born of the earth, and some are born of heaven, and some are born of God: those are born of the earth, who are hunters after the pleasures of the body, devoting themselves to the enjoyment and fruition of them, and being eager to provide themselves with all things that tend to each of them. Those again are born of heaven who are men of skill and science and devoted to learning; for the heavenly portion of us is our mind, and the mind of every one of those persons who are born of heaven studies the encyclical branches of education and every other art of every description, sharpening, and exercising, and practising itself, and rendering itself acute in all those matters which are the objects of intellect. 61 Lastly, those who are born of God are priests and prophets, who have not thought fit to mix themselves up in the constitutions of this world, and to become cosmopolites, but who having raised themselves above all the objects of the mere outward senses, have departed and fixed their views on that world which is perceptible only by the intellect, and have settled there, being inscribed in the state of incorruptible incorporeal ideas.
Translated by C. D. Yonge.
Translated by C. D. Yonge.
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.16 (1st century CE)
It is a well-known fact, that, at the age of three years, the body of each person is half the height that it will ever attain. Taking it all in all, it is observed that in the human race, the stature is almost daily becoming less and less, and that sons are rarely taller than their parents, the fertility of the seed being dried up by the heat of that conflagration to which the world is fast approaching. A mountain of the island of Crete having been burst asunder by the action of an earthquake, a body was found there standing upright, forty-six cubits in height; by some persons it is supposed to have been that of Orion; while others again are of opinion that it was that of Otus. It is generally believed, from what is stated in ancient records, that the body of Orestes, which was disinterred by command of an oracle, was seven cubits in height. It is now nearly one thousand years ago, that that divine poet Homer was unceasingly complaining, that men were of less stature in his day than they had formerly been. Our Annals do not inform us what was the height of Nævius Pollio; but we learn from them that he nearly lost his life from the rush of the people to see him, and that he was looked upon as a prodigy. The tallest man that has been seen in our times, was one Gabbaras by name, who was brought from Arabia by the Emperor Claudius; his height was nine feet and as many inches. In the reign of Augustus, there were two persons, Posio and Secundilla by name, who were half a foot taller than him; their bodies have been preserved as objects of curiosity in the museum of the Sallustian family.
In the reign of the same emperor, there was a man also, remarkable for his extremely diminutive stature, being only two feet and a palm in height; his name was Conopas, and he was a great pet with Julia, the grand-daughter of Augustus. There was a female also, of the same size, Andromeda by name, a freed-woman of Julia Augusta. We learn from Varro, that Manius Maximus and M. Tullius, members of our equestrian order, were only two cubits in height; and I have myself seen them, preserved in their coffins. It is far from an unknown fact, that children are occasionally born a foot and a half in height, and sometimes a little more; such children, however, have finished their span of existence by the time they are three years old.
Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley in Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (1855).
In the reign of the same emperor, there was a man also, remarkable for his extremely diminutive stature, being only two feet and a palm in height; his name was Conopas, and he was a great pet with Julia, the grand-daughter of Augustus. There was a female also, of the same size, Andromeda by name, a freed-woman of Julia Augusta. We learn from Varro, that Manius Maximus and M. Tullius, members of our equestrian order, were only two cubits in height; and I have myself seen them, preserved in their coffins. It is far from an unknown fact, that children are occasionally born a foot and a half in height, and sometimes a little more; such children, however, have finished their span of existence by the time they are three years old.
Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley in Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (1855).
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 5.125 (1st century CE)
For which reason they (the Israelites) 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.
Translated by William Whiston.
Translated by William Whiston.
Plutarch, Life of Sertorius 9 (1st century CE)
Sulla sent Paccianus to help Ascalis, but Sertorius engaging him with his forces killed Paccianus, and after his victory brought over the army and took Tigennis, to which Ascalis and his brother had fled. It is here that the Libyans say Antaeus is buried. Sertorius dug into the mound, as he did not believe what the barbarians said, so enormous was the size. But, finding the body there, sixty cubits in length, as they say, he was confounded, and, after making a sacrifice, he piled up the earth, and added to the repute and fame of the monument.
Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long.
Translated by Aubrey Stewart and George Long.
Plutarch, Life of Theseus 36 (1st century CE)
However, Cimon took the island, as I have related in his Life, and being ambitious to discover the grave of Theseus, saw an eagle in a place where there was the semblance of a mound, pecking, as he says, and tearing up the ground with his talons. By some divine ordering he comprehended the meaning of this and dug there, and there was found a coffin of a man of extraordinary size, a bronze spear lying by its side, and a sword. When these relics were brought home on his trireme by Cimon, the Athenians were delighted, and received them with splendid processions and sacrifices, as though Theseus himself were returning to his city. And now he lies buried in the heart of the city, near the present gymnasium, and his tomb is a sanctuary and place of refuge for runaway slaves and all men of low estate who are afraid of men in power, since Theseus was a champion and helper of such during his life, and graciously received the supplications of the poor and needy.
Translated by Bernadotte Perrin.
Translated by Bernadotte Perrin.
Clement, Recognitions 1.29 (c. 96 CE)
In the ninth generation are born the giants, so called from of old, not dragon-footed, as the fables of the Greeks relate, but men of immense bodies, whose bones, of enormous size, are still shown in some places for confirmation.
Translated by Thomas Smith.
Translated by Thomas Smith.
Pausanias, Description of Greece (c. 2nd century CE)
1.35
5. [A Mysian] said that the sea flooded the side of the grave [of Ajax] facing the beach and made it easy to enter the tomb, and he bade me form an estimate of the size of the corpse in the following way. The bones on his knees, called by doctors the knee-pan, were in the case of Ajax as big as the quoit of a boy in the pentathlon. I saw nothing to wonder at in the stature of those Celts who live farthest of on the borders of the land which is uninhabited because of the cold; these people, the Cabares, are no bigger than Egyptian corpses. But I will relate all that appeared to me worth seeing. 6. For the Magnesians on the Lethaeus, Protophanes, one of the citizens, won at Olympia in one day victories in the pancration and in wrestling. Into the grave of this man robbers entered, thinking to gain some advantage, and after the robbers people came in to see the corpse, which had ribs not separated but joined together from the shoulders to the smallest ribs, those called by doctors bastard. Before the city of the Milesians is an island called Lade, and from it certain islets are detached. One of these they call the islet of Asterius, and say that Asterius was buried in it, and that Asterius was the son of Anax, and Anax the son of Earth. Now the corpse is not less than ten cubits. 7. But what really caused me surprise is this. There is a small city of upper Lydia called The Doors of Temenus. There a crest broke away in a storm, and there appeared bones the shape of which led one to suppose that they were human, but from their size one would never have thought it. At once the story spread among the multitude that it was the corpse of Geryon, the son of Chrysaor, and that the seat also was his. For there is a man's seat carved on a rocky spur of the mountain. And a torrent they called the river Ocean, and they said that men ploughing met with the horns of cattle, for the story is that Geryon reared excellent cows. 8. And when I criticized the account and pointed out to them that Geryon is at Gadeira, where there is, not his tomb, but a tree showing different shapes, the guides of the Lydians related the true story, that the corpse is that of Hyllus, a son of Earth, from whom the river is named. They also said that Heracles from his sojourning with Omphale called his son Hyllus after the river.
3.22.9
By the sea is a city Asopus, sixty stades distant from Acriae. In it is a temple of the Roman emperors, and about twelve stades inland from the city is a sanctuary of Asclepius. They call the god Philolaus, and the bones in the gymnasium, which they worship, are human, although of superhuman size.
5.13.4-6
The following tale too is told. When the war of the Greeks against Troy was prolonged, the soothsayers prophesied to them that they would not take the city until they had fetched the bow and arrows of Heracles and a bone of Pelops. So it is said that they sent for Philoctetes to the camp, and from Pisa was brought to them a bone of Pelops – a shoulder-blade. As they were returning home, the ship carrying the bone of Pelops was wrecked off Euboea in the storm.
Many years later than the capture of Troy, Damarmenus, a fisherman from Eretria, cast a net into the sea and drew up the bone. Marvelling at its size he kept it hidden in the sand. At last he went to Delphi, to inquire whose the bone was, and what he ought to do with it.
It happened that by the providence of Heaven there was then at Delphi an Elean embassy praying for deliverance from a pestilence. So the Pythian priestess ordered the Eleans to recover the bones of Pelops, and Damarmenus to give back to the Eleans what he had found. He did so, and the Eleans repaid him by appointing him and his descendants to be guardians of the bone. The shoulder-blade of Pelops had disappeared by my time, because, I suppose, it had been hidden in the depths so long, and besides its age it was greatly decayed through the salt water.
8.32.5
Under this hill [at Megalopolis] there is another sanctuary of Boy Asclepius. His image is upright and about a cubit in height, that of Apollo is seated on a throne and is not less than six feet high. Here are also kept bones, too big for those of a human being, about which the story ran that they were those of one of the giants mustered by Hopladamus to fight for Rhea, as my story will relate hereafter. Near this sanctuary is a spring, the water flowing down from which is received by the Helisson.
Translated by W. H. S. Jones in Pausanias, The Description of Greece (1918).
The kneecap of Ajax has long been recognized as that of an Ice Age elephant.
5. [A Mysian] said that the sea flooded the side of the grave [of Ajax] facing the beach and made it easy to enter the tomb, and he bade me form an estimate of the size of the corpse in the following way. The bones on his knees, called by doctors the knee-pan, were in the case of Ajax as big as the quoit of a boy in the pentathlon. I saw nothing to wonder at in the stature of those Celts who live farthest of on the borders of the land which is uninhabited because of the cold; these people, the Cabares, are no bigger than Egyptian corpses. But I will relate all that appeared to me worth seeing. 6. For the Magnesians on the Lethaeus, Protophanes, one of the citizens, won at Olympia in one day victories in the pancration and in wrestling. Into the grave of this man robbers entered, thinking to gain some advantage, and after the robbers people came in to see the corpse, which had ribs not separated but joined together from the shoulders to the smallest ribs, those called by doctors bastard. Before the city of the Milesians is an island called Lade, and from it certain islets are detached. One of these they call the islet of Asterius, and say that Asterius was buried in it, and that Asterius was the son of Anax, and Anax the son of Earth. Now the corpse is not less than ten cubits. 7. But what really caused me surprise is this. There is a small city of upper Lydia called The Doors of Temenus. There a crest broke away in a storm, and there appeared bones the shape of which led one to suppose that they were human, but from their size one would never have thought it. At once the story spread among the multitude that it was the corpse of Geryon, the son of Chrysaor, and that the seat also was his. For there is a man's seat carved on a rocky spur of the mountain. And a torrent they called the river Ocean, and they said that men ploughing met with the horns of cattle, for the story is that Geryon reared excellent cows. 8. And when I criticized the account and pointed out to them that Geryon is at Gadeira, where there is, not his tomb, but a tree showing different shapes, the guides of the Lydians related the true story, that the corpse is that of Hyllus, a son of Earth, from whom the river is named. They also said that Heracles from his sojourning with Omphale called his son Hyllus after the river.
3.22.9
By the sea is a city Asopus, sixty stades distant from Acriae. In it is a temple of the Roman emperors, and about twelve stades inland from the city is a sanctuary of Asclepius. They call the god Philolaus, and the bones in the gymnasium, which they worship, are human, although of superhuman size.
5.13.4-6
The following tale too is told. When the war of the Greeks against Troy was prolonged, the soothsayers prophesied to them that they would not take the city until they had fetched the bow and arrows of Heracles and a bone of Pelops. So it is said that they sent for Philoctetes to the camp, and from Pisa was brought to them a bone of Pelops – a shoulder-blade. As they were returning home, the ship carrying the bone of Pelops was wrecked off Euboea in the storm.
Many years later than the capture of Troy, Damarmenus, a fisherman from Eretria, cast a net into the sea and drew up the bone. Marvelling at its size he kept it hidden in the sand. At last he went to Delphi, to inquire whose the bone was, and what he ought to do with it.
It happened that by the providence of Heaven there was then at Delphi an Elean embassy praying for deliverance from a pestilence. So the Pythian priestess ordered the Eleans to recover the bones of Pelops, and Damarmenus to give back to the Eleans what he had found. He did so, and the Eleans repaid him by appointing him and his descendants to be guardians of the bone. The shoulder-blade of Pelops had disappeared by my time, because, I suppose, it had been hidden in the depths so long, and besides its age it was greatly decayed through the salt water.
8.32.5
Under this hill [at Megalopolis] there is another sanctuary of Boy Asclepius. His image is upright and about a cubit in height, that of Apollo is seated on a throne and is not less than six feet high. Here are also kept bones, too big for those of a human being, about which the story ran that they were those of one of the giants mustered by Hopladamus to fight for Rhea, as my story will relate hereafter. Near this sanctuary is a spring, the water flowing down from which is received by the Helisson.
Translated by W. H. S. Jones in Pausanias, The Description of Greece (1918).
The kneecap of Ajax has long been recognized as that of an Ice Age elephant.
Phlegon of Tralles, On Marvels 11-19 (c. 170 CE)
11. Not many years since, in Messene, Apollonius says, that a large stone vessel was broke through violent tempests, and a great inundation of water, and that a head was washed out of it, three times as large as that of a man, with two rows of teeth. An inscription informed those that were endeavouring to find whose head it was, that it was the head of Idas: for this was the inscription, ΙΔΕΩ, i.e. OF IDAS. The Messenians, therefore, at the public cost, provided another vessel, and placed in it the remains of the hero in such a manner, that they were more secure than before, as they perceived that this was the person of whom Homer says:
Idas the strongest of the mortal race
That flourish'd then, who for a beauteous nymph
Dared with Apollo Phoebus to contend,
And aim his arrows at the radiant king.
(Iliad 9.558-960)
12. In Dalmatia, too, in that which is called the cavern of Artemis, many bodies may be seen, whose ribs exceed sixteen cubits.
13. But the grammarian Apollonius relates that there was an earthquake during the reign of Tiberius Nero, through which many celebrated cities of Asia were entirely destroyed, but which Tiberius afterwards rebuilt at his own expense; for which benefit the Asiatics made a colossal statue of him, and placed it near the temple of Venus, which is in the forum of the Romans and after this, they placed the statues of the several cities that had been rebuilt.
14. Not a few, too, of the cities of Sicily suffered through this earthquake, and places near Rhegium, together with several of the cities in Pontus. But in those parts in which the earth was rent asunder, very large dead bodies were found; the magnitude of which, indeed, so astonished the inhabitants, that they were unwilling to move them. That the affair, however, might be generally known, they sent to Rome one of the teeth of these bodies; and this was more than a foot long. The ambassadors, at the same time they showed this to Tiberius, asked him whether he wished that the hero to whom this tooth belonged should be brought to him. Upon this Tiberius very prudently thought of a means by which he might neither be deprived of knowing the dimensions of this body, nor yet be guilty of the impiety of robbing the dead. He ordered a celebrated geometrician, whose name was Pulcrus, and whom he honoured for his art, to be called, and desired him to make a face in proportion to the size of that tooth. The geometrician therefore, having calculated from the size of the tooth the dimensions of the face and of the whole body, accomplished the task imposed on him with great celerity, and brought the face to the Emperor, who, after he had satisfied himself with beholding it, ordered the tooth to be restored to the place from whence it was taken.
15. Nor ought we to refuse to assent to this narration, since there is a place in Egypt called Litrae, in which bodies are to be seen not less in size than the above-mentioned, and these not buried in the earth, but exposed to the view, neither confused nor disturbed, but placed in proper order, so that he who looks at them can tell which are the bones of the thighs, legs, and other members. It is not therefore by any means proper to disbelieve these accounts: but we ought to think that at first nature being very vigorous, caused every thing to approach near to the perfection of the gods; and that becoming afterwards debilitated, the magnitude of bodies also decreased.
16. I am likewise informed, that at Rhodes there are bones which far surpass in magnitude the bones of men of the present day.
17. And the same Apollonius says, that there is a certain island near Athens, which the Athenians fortified with walls; and that when they were digging the foundations of these walls, they found a sepulchre of one hundred cubits in length, in which there was a skeleton of the same dimensions with the sepulchre, with this inscription: “I, Macroseiris, who lived five thousand years, am buried in a long island.”
18. Eumachus, in his description of the earth, says that the Carthaginians, when they were digging a trench in their own country, found two skeletons placed in coffins, one of which was twenty-three, and the other twenty-four cubits in length.
19. And Theopompus Sinopensis, in his Treatise on Earthquakes, says, that a sudden earthquake happening in the Cimmerian Bosphorus, a certain hill was rent asunder, and bones of a prodigious magnitude were thrown out of it: for the length of the whole skeleton was found to be twenty-four cubits. He adds, that the Barbarians who dwelt about those parts threw these bones into the lake Maeotis.
Translated by T. Taylor (adapted).
Idas the strongest of the mortal race
That flourish'd then, who for a beauteous nymph
Dared with Apollo Phoebus to contend,
And aim his arrows at the radiant king.
(Iliad 9.558-960)
12. In Dalmatia, too, in that which is called the cavern of Artemis, many bodies may be seen, whose ribs exceed sixteen cubits.
13. But the grammarian Apollonius relates that there was an earthquake during the reign of Tiberius Nero, through which many celebrated cities of Asia were entirely destroyed, but which Tiberius afterwards rebuilt at his own expense; for which benefit the Asiatics made a colossal statue of him, and placed it near the temple of Venus, which is in the forum of the Romans and after this, they placed the statues of the several cities that had been rebuilt.
14. Not a few, too, of the cities of Sicily suffered through this earthquake, and places near Rhegium, together with several of the cities in Pontus. But in those parts in which the earth was rent asunder, very large dead bodies were found; the magnitude of which, indeed, so astonished the inhabitants, that they were unwilling to move them. That the affair, however, might be generally known, they sent to Rome one of the teeth of these bodies; and this was more than a foot long. The ambassadors, at the same time they showed this to Tiberius, asked him whether he wished that the hero to whom this tooth belonged should be brought to him. Upon this Tiberius very prudently thought of a means by which he might neither be deprived of knowing the dimensions of this body, nor yet be guilty of the impiety of robbing the dead. He ordered a celebrated geometrician, whose name was Pulcrus, and whom he honoured for his art, to be called, and desired him to make a face in proportion to the size of that tooth. The geometrician therefore, having calculated from the size of the tooth the dimensions of the face and of the whole body, accomplished the task imposed on him with great celerity, and brought the face to the Emperor, who, after he had satisfied himself with beholding it, ordered the tooth to be restored to the place from whence it was taken.
15. Nor ought we to refuse to assent to this narration, since there is a place in Egypt called Litrae, in which bodies are to be seen not less in size than the above-mentioned, and these not buried in the earth, but exposed to the view, neither confused nor disturbed, but placed in proper order, so that he who looks at them can tell which are the bones of the thighs, legs, and other members. It is not therefore by any means proper to disbelieve these accounts: but we ought to think that at first nature being very vigorous, caused every thing to approach near to the perfection of the gods; and that becoming afterwards debilitated, the magnitude of bodies also decreased.
16. I am likewise informed, that at Rhodes there are bones which far surpass in magnitude the bones of men of the present day.
17. And the same Apollonius says, that there is a certain island near Athens, which the Athenians fortified with walls; and that when they were digging the foundations of these walls, they found a sepulchre of one hundred cubits in length, in which there was a skeleton of the same dimensions with the sepulchre, with this inscription: “I, Macroseiris, who lived five thousand years, am buried in a long island.”
18. Eumachus, in his description of the earth, says that the Carthaginians, when they were digging a trench in their own country, found two skeletons placed in coffins, one of which was twenty-three, and the other twenty-four cubits in length.
19. And Theopompus Sinopensis, in his Treatise on Earthquakes, says, that a sudden earthquake happening in the Cimmerian Bosphorus, a certain hill was rent asunder, and bones of a prodigious magnitude were thrown out of it: for the length of the whole skeleton was found to be twenty-four cubits. He adds, that the Barbarians who dwelt about those parts threw these bones into the lake Maeotis.
Translated by T. Taylor (adapted).
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 2.72 (c. 2nd century CE)
His own villas, which were modest enough, he (Caesar Augustus) decorated not so much with handsome statues and pictures as with terraces, groves, and objects noteworthy for their antiquity and rarity; for example, at Capreae the monstrous bones of huge sea monsters and wild beasts, called the “bones of the giants” and the “weapons of heroes.”
Translated by J. C. Rolfe in volume 1 of the Loeb Suetonius (1914).
Translated by J. C. Rolfe in volume 1 of the Loeb Suetonius (1914).
Philostratus, On Heroes 8.1-6 (c. 200 CE)
Vinedresser: [§8.1] Listen now, my friend. I had a grandfather who knew many of the things you do not believe. He used to say that the tomb of Ajax was destroyed by the sea near which it lies, and that bones appeared in it of a person eleven cubits tall. He also said that upon his arrival at Troy the emperor Hadrian embraced and kissed some of the bones, wrapped them up, and restored the present tomb of Ajax.
Phoenician.: [§8.2] Not without reason, vinedresser, am I likely to doubt such things, since you say that you have heard something from your grandfather and probably from your mother or nurse; but you report nothing on your own authority unless you would speak about Protesilaos.
Vinedr.: [§8.3]Indeed, if I were versed in legendary lore, I would describe the seven-cubit-long corpse of Orestes, which the Lacedaemonians found in Tegea as well as that corpse inside the bronze Lydian horse, which had been buried in Lydia before the time of Gyges. When the earth was split by an earthquake, the marvel was observed by Lydian shepherds with whom Gyges then served. The corpse, appearing larger than human, had been laid in a hollow horse that had openings on either side. [§8.4] Even if such things can be doubted because of their antiquity, I do not know anything from our own time that you will deny. [§8.5] Not long ago, a bank of the river Orontes, when it was divided, revealed Aryadês—whom some called an Ethiopian, others an Indian—a thirty-cubit-long corpse lying in the land of Assyria.
[§8.6] Moreover, not more than fifty years ago, Sigeion—right over here—revealed the body of a giant on an outcropping of its promontory. Apollo himself asserts that he killed him while fighting on behalf of Troy. When sailing into Sigeion, my guest, I saw the very condition of the earth and how big the giant was. Many Hellespontians and Ionians and all the islanders and Aeolians sailed there as well. For two months the giant lay on the great promontory, giving rise to one tale after another since the oracle had not yet revealed the true story.
Translated by Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean (2003). Reproduced as fair use; full text here.
Phoenician.: [§8.2] Not without reason, vinedresser, am I likely to doubt such things, since you say that you have heard something from your grandfather and probably from your mother or nurse; but you report nothing on your own authority unless you would speak about Protesilaos.
Vinedr.: [§8.3]Indeed, if I were versed in legendary lore, I would describe the seven-cubit-long corpse of Orestes, which the Lacedaemonians found in Tegea as well as that corpse inside the bronze Lydian horse, which had been buried in Lydia before the time of Gyges. When the earth was split by an earthquake, the marvel was observed by Lydian shepherds with whom Gyges then served. The corpse, appearing larger than human, had been laid in a hollow horse that had openings on either side. [§8.4] Even if such things can be doubted because of their antiquity, I do not know anything from our own time that you will deny. [§8.5] Not long ago, a bank of the river Orontes, when it was divided, revealed Aryadês—whom some called an Ethiopian, others an Indian—a thirty-cubit-long corpse lying in the land of Assyria.
[§8.6] Moreover, not more than fifty years ago, Sigeion—right over here—revealed the body of a giant on an outcropping of its promontory. Apollo himself asserts that he killed him while fighting on behalf of Troy. When sailing into Sigeion, my guest, I saw the very condition of the earth and how big the giant was. Many Hellespontians and Ionians and all the islanders and Aeolians sailed there as well. For two months the giant lay on the great promontory, giving rise to one tale after another since the oracle had not yet revealed the true story.
Translated by Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean (2003). Reproduced as fair use; full text here.
Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium (c. 200 CE)
1.90-91. For who born in this age is not smaller than his ancestors? Proof of this is offered by the relics of Orestes, whose bones were found by the Spartans at Tegaea by the information of the Oracle during the fifty-eighth Olympiad, and we are assured they were a full seven cubits long. Also there are writings registered in remembrance of things done in ancient times, which vouchsafe the assuredness of the truth, wherein it is specified, that in the war with Crete [in 67 BCE], at such time as the rivers were flowing more violently than fresh waters are wont and had broken up the ground there, after the waters receded, among many clefts in the ground, there was found a body of thirty-three cubits. For desire to see the which, the legate L. [Valerius] Flaccus and [the consul Quintus Caecilius] Metellus [Creticus] himself also were wonderfully amazed at the strangeness thereof, went thither, and beheld the wonder with their eyes, which they had thought a fable to hear reported.
Adapted from the translation of Arthur Golding (1587)
9.6-7. At Phlegra, before the town was built, hearsay is that here the campaign to rule the world was fought with the giants, so that proof and evidence of their campaign against the gods persist down to this very time. In that place, when (as it happens) torrents swell with rain and the increased weight of the water breaks the banks and ruins the fields, they say that through the inundation are uncovered bones which are like the bodies of humans but much greater, and due to their enormous magnitude must be the bodies of the monstrous army. This is helped by the evidence of the tremendous stone with which they are believed to have attacked heaven.
Translated by Jason Colavito
Adapted from the translation of Arthur Golding (1587)
9.6-7. At Phlegra, before the town was built, hearsay is that here the campaign to rule the world was fought with the giants, so that proof and evidence of their campaign against the gods persist down to this very time. In that place, when (as it happens) torrents swell with rain and the increased weight of the water breaks the banks and ruins the fields, they say that through the inundation are uncovered bones which are like the bodies of humans but much greater, and due to their enormous magnitude must be the bodies of the monstrous army. This is helped by the evidence of the tremendous stone with which they are believed to have attacked heaven.
Translated by Jason Colavito
Talmud Bavli, Chullin (Hulin) 60b (3rd-5th century CE)
R. Joseph said: Every one of them (the Avvim) had sixteen rows of teeth.
Translation in the Epstein edition of the Babylonian Talmud.
In Jewish lore, the Avvim (Deuteronomy 2:23) were believed to be related to the Rephaim and therefore giants. In the Genesis Raba (26:7), they are named as one of seven tribes of giants descended from the mighty men of Genesis 6:4.
Translation in the Epstein edition of the Babylonian Talmud.
In Jewish lore, the Avvim (Deuteronomy 2:23) were believed to be related to the Rephaim and therefore giants. In the Genesis Raba (26:7), they are named as one of seven tribes of giants descended from the mighty men of Genesis 6:4.
Augustine, City of God 15.9 (5th century CE)
Of the Long Life and Greater Stature of the Antediluvians.
Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men’s bodies was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--
“Scarce twelve strong men of later mould
That weight could on their necks uphold.”
thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of incredible size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the shore at Utica a man’s molar tooth of such a size, that if it were cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men. And he mentions that Homer in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the ancients, and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the length of an antediluvian’s life cannot now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements of past fact we are the more inexcusable in discrediting, as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future. And even that same Pliny tells us that there is still a nation in which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own experience, why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are we to believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not believe that in other times there has been anything but what is now?
Translated by Marcus Dods in the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men’s bodies was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--
“Scarce twelve strong men of later mould
That weight could on their necks uphold.”
thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of incredible size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the shore at Utica a man’s molar tooth of such a size, that if it were cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men. And he mentions that Homer in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the ancients, and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the length of an antediluvian’s life cannot now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements of past fact we are the more inexcusable in discrediting, as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future. And even that same Pliny tells us that there is still a nation in which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own experience, why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are we to believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not believe that in other times there has been anything but what is now?
Translated by Marcus Dods in the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus 1.3 (c. 700 CE)
And there are monsters of extraordinary magnitude, such as King Hygelac, who ruled the Geats and was killed by the Franks, and whom from the age of twelve years no horse could carry. His bones are preserved on an island in the Rhine River, where it rushes forth into the Ocean, and they are shown to visitors from far away as a wonder.
Translated by Jason Colavito
Translated by Jason Colavito
Abū Sahl al-Faḍl ibn Nawbakhtī, Kitāb al-Nahmuṭān (late 8th century CE)
In al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist 7.1 (987 CE)
Then when he [Darius III] refused to pay the tribute still imposed upon the people of Babylon and the kingdom of Persia, he [Alexander] killed him, Dārā ibn Dārā the king [Darius III], taking possession of his kingdom, destroying his cities, and razing the ramparts built by demons and giants.
Translated by Bayard Dodge (1970)
Then when he [Darius III] refused to pay the tribute still imposed upon the people of Babylon and the kingdom of Persia, he [Alexander] killed him, Dārā ibn Dārā the king [Darius III], taking possession of his kingdom, destroying his cities, and razing the ramparts built by demons and giants.
Translated by Bayard Dodge (1970)
Old English Gnomic Verses, lines 1b-3a (early medieval)
Cities (those which are on this earth) are visible from afar,
skilful work of giants, wondrous construction of wall-stones.
Translated by Audrey L. Meaney (2003) from the Anglo-Saxon Reader of Henry Sweet (1876, 1894) and D. Whitelock (1967)
skilful work of giants, wondrous construction of wall-stones.
Translated by Audrey L. Meaney (2003) from the Anglo-Saxon Reader of Henry Sweet (1876, 1894) and D. Whitelock (1967)
Suda, s. v. "Menas" (c. 10th century CE)
In the church of St. Menas, when it was being cleaned, a great pit was discovered, and in it many giants’ bones. When the Emperor Anastasius saw these, he was overcome with admiration and he placed them in the palace as a magnificent wonder.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Ibn Fadlan, Travels (after 922 CE)
Tīkīn told me that in the king’s lands [along the Volga] was a man of extraordinary size. When I arrived there, I asked the king about him.
‘Yes, he lived in our county, but he is dead. He was not one of our people, nor was he an ordinary man. His story is as follows. One day some merchants set out in the direction of the Itil River, as they were in the habit of doing. The river was in flood and had broken its banks. A day had scarcely passed when a group of these merchants came to me and said: “O king, we have seen swimming on the waters a man of such a kind that if he belonged to the people dwelling near us there would be no place for us in these lands, but we would have to emigrate.”
‘I set out on horseback with them and reached the river. I found myself face to face with the man. I saw that judging by the length of my own forearm, he was twelve cubits tall. He had a head the size of the largest cooking pot, a nose more than a span long, huge eyes, and fingers more than a span in length. His appearance frightened me and I had the same feeling of terror as the others. We began to speak to him, but he did not speak to us and only stared. I had him taken to my residence and I wrote to the people of Wīsū, who live three months’ distance from us, to ask for information about him. They wrote to me, informing that this man was one of the people of Gog and Magog.
‘They live three months from us. They are naked and the sea forms a barrier between us, for the live on the other shore. They couple together like beasts. God, All-high and All-powerful, causes a fish to come out of the sea for them each day. One of them comes with knife and cuts off a piece sufficient for himself and his family. If he takes more than he needs, his belly aches and so does the bellies of his family. When they have taken what they need, the fish turns round and dives back into the sea. They do this every day. Between us and them, there is the sea on one side and they are enclosed by mountains on the others. The Barrier also separates them from the gate by which they leave. When God, All-high and All-powerful wants to unleash them on civilized lands, He causes the Barrier to open and the level of the sea to drop and the fish to vanish.’
I questioned the king further about this man, and he told me:
‘He stayed with me for a time, but no child could look at him without dying and no pregnant woman without miscarrying. If he took hold of a man, his hands squeezed him until he killed him. When I realized that, I had him hung from a high tree until he died. If you want to see his bones and bones, I will go along with you and show them to you.’
‘I would like very much to see them’, I answered.
He rode with me into a great forest filled with immense trees and shoved me toward the tree under which had fallen his bones and head. I saw his head. It was like a great beehive. His ribs were like the stalks of a date cluster and his leg bones and arm bones also were enormous. I was astounded at the sight. Then I went away.
Translated by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone (2011).
‘Yes, he lived in our county, but he is dead. He was not one of our people, nor was he an ordinary man. His story is as follows. One day some merchants set out in the direction of the Itil River, as they were in the habit of doing. The river was in flood and had broken its banks. A day had scarcely passed when a group of these merchants came to me and said: “O king, we have seen swimming on the waters a man of such a kind that if he belonged to the people dwelling near us there would be no place for us in these lands, but we would have to emigrate.”
‘I set out on horseback with them and reached the river. I found myself face to face with the man. I saw that judging by the length of my own forearm, he was twelve cubits tall. He had a head the size of the largest cooking pot, a nose more than a span long, huge eyes, and fingers more than a span in length. His appearance frightened me and I had the same feeling of terror as the others. We began to speak to him, but he did not speak to us and only stared. I had him taken to my residence and I wrote to the people of Wīsū, who live three months’ distance from us, to ask for information about him. They wrote to me, informing that this man was one of the people of Gog and Magog.
‘They live three months from us. They are naked and the sea forms a barrier between us, for the live on the other shore. They couple together like beasts. God, All-high and All-powerful, causes a fish to come out of the sea for them each day. One of them comes with knife and cuts off a piece sufficient for himself and his family. If he takes more than he needs, his belly aches and so does the bellies of his family. When they have taken what they need, the fish turns round and dives back into the sea. They do this every day. Between us and them, there is the sea on one side and they are enclosed by mountains on the others. The Barrier also separates them from the gate by which they leave. When God, All-high and All-powerful wants to unleash them on civilized lands, He causes the Barrier to open and the level of the sea to drop and the fish to vanish.’
I questioned the king further about this man, and he told me:
‘He stayed with me for a time, but no child could look at him without dying and no pregnant woman without miscarrying. If he took hold of a man, his hands squeezed him until he killed him. When I realized that, I had him hung from a high tree until he died. If you want to see his bones and bones, I will go along with you and show them to you.’
‘I would like very much to see them’, I answered.
He rode with me into a great forest filled with immense trees and shoved me toward the tree under which had fallen his bones and head. I saw his head. It was like a great beehive. His ribs were like the stalks of a date cluster and his leg bones and arm bones also were enormous. I was astounded at the sight. Then I went away.
Translated by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone (2011).
Al-Ghazali, History of the Prophets 19 (c. 1100 CE)
The ’Ādites were stronger in body and more powerful than the Thamudites. There was no nation on earth equal to the ’Ādites in tallness or strength. Every man was twelve spans high and some of them were so strong that if they struck the foot on the dry ground they would sink into it to the knee. They built houses in their country which were in keeping with their strength and of almost everlasting construction up to this day; if you see a strange building it is called ’Ādian: “Irani dzāt imad, &c.” It is said in the Koran, “Do you not know how God has acted with the ’Ādites, who were the Lords of ’imād.” ’Imād is a pillar and the meaning of the passage is that they were in stature like pillars; every one of them was like several pillars in height and strength. In another passage they are compared with palm roots: “they are like palm roots strewed about on the ground.”
Translated by Aloys Sprenger. The text is an abridgment of that of al-Tabari in History of the Prophets and Kings from 915 CE.
Translated by Aloys Sprenger. The text is an abridgment of that of al-Tabari in History of the Prophets and Kings from 915 CE.
William of Malmesbury, Gesta rerum Anglorum 2.13 (c. 1125)
At that time [in the reign of Henry III, about 1065 CE] the body of Pallas, the son of Evander, of whom Virgil speaks, was found entire at Rome, to the great astonishment of all, for having escaped corruption so many ages. Such, however, is the nature of bodies embalmed, that, when the flesh decays, the skin preserves the nerves, and the nerves the bones. The gash which Turnus had made in the middle of his breast measured four feet and a half. His epitaph was found to this effect, “Pallas, Evander’s son, lies buried here / In order due, transfix’d by Turnus’ spear.”
Which epitaph I should not think made at the time, though Carmentis the mother of Evander is reported to have discovered the Roman letters, but that it was composed by Ennius, or some other ancient poet. There was a burning lamp at his head, constructed by magical art; so that no violent blast, no dripping of water could extinguish it. While many were lost in admiration at this, one person, as there are always some people expert in mischief, made an aperture beneath the flame with an iron style, which introducing the air, the light vanished. The body, when set up against the wall, surpassed it in height, but some days afterwards, being drenched with the drip of the eves, it acknowledged the corruption common to mortals; the skin and the nerves dissolving.
translated by John Sharpe and J. A. Giles
Compare Martinus Polonus, Chronicle, ch. 95; Bocaccio, Genealogia deorum gentilium 12.60; John Capgrave, Chronicle of England, entry for 1038; and Athanasius Kircher, Mundus subterraneus 8.4.2. See too the independent account below.
Which epitaph I should not think made at the time, though Carmentis the mother of Evander is reported to have discovered the Roman letters, but that it was composed by Ennius, or some other ancient poet. There was a burning lamp at his head, constructed by magical art; so that no violent blast, no dripping of water could extinguish it. While many were lost in admiration at this, one person, as there are always some people expert in mischief, made an aperture beneath the flame with an iron style, which introducing the air, the light vanished. The body, when set up against the wall, surpassed it in height, but some days afterwards, being drenched with the drip of the eves, it acknowledged the corruption common to mortals; the skin and the nerves dissolving.
translated by John Sharpe and J. A. Giles
Compare Martinus Polonus, Chronicle, ch. 95; Bocaccio, Genealogia deorum gentilium 12.60; John Capgrave, Chronicle of England, entry for 1038; and Athanasius Kircher, Mundus subterraneus 8.4.2. See too the independent account below.
Status Imperii Iudaici 1.17 (c. 1137-1170 CE)
Romulus, after he had grown up, built the city of Rome, having imposed upon it his own name as its name. In this very place there had been an ancient town, which was called Pallanteus, as the historians say, built by King Evander, in honor of his son, the young man Pallas, who was killed by Turnus, the son of Daunus, king of the Tuscans, while fighting against Aeneas for the kingdom of Italy, as Virgil writes in the tenth book of the Aeneid (10.439-609). It is evident that Pallas had been buried in the place where Rome was later founded. And in the time of Philip, king of the Franks (Philip I of France, 1052-1108), his body was found uncorrupted in Rome, in a kind of underground vault, as some of our compatriots who were then at Rome bear witness. Moreover, the body was preserved with balm and precious aromatic salts, having as its source the top of a pair of bronze (variant: silver) urns similarly filled with balm. And from each a hollow tube of the same metal, which entered the body through the nostrils, transported the powerful spices into the body. Thus the fact is that he looked like one asleep lying atop a table of bronze, remaining uncorrupted for more than two thousand years. Here a lamp was found still burning, along with much silver and gold, and an inscription of this kind: “Here lies, according to his custom, Pallas, the son of Evander, whom the spear of the knight Turnus killed.”
Therefore the Romans carried the body out into the open and placed it in the open air. They gathered and vied with one another to see the marvel. Moreover, he was so long that almost none of the Romans were able to stand equal with his shoulders. Beneath the breast was still evident the gaping wound, with which Turnus killed him. Since, therefore, the body stood in the open air, by chance an inundation of rain occurred. Soon after, the deluge of rain dissolved the balm, which ran off of the body itself. Once its power had been stripped, the body was at once reduced to ashes. And also that wonderful lamp, which was so long preserved under the ground, was handed over to a certain Jew who dipped it in the blood of a red-headed man (variant: red bull) and thus extinguished it. Astonishing how these things could remain intact and undiminished for many years!
Translated by Jason Colavito
Therefore the Romans carried the body out into the open and placed it in the open air. They gathered and vied with one another to see the marvel. Moreover, he was so long that almost none of the Romans were able to stand equal with his shoulders. Beneath the breast was still evident the gaping wound, with which Turnus killed him. Since, therefore, the body stood in the open air, by chance an inundation of rain occurred. Soon after, the deluge of rain dissolved the balm, which ran off of the body itself. Once its power had been stripped, the body was at once reduced to ashes. And also that wonderful lamp, which was so long preserved under the ground, was handed over to a certain Jew who dipped it in the blood of a red-headed man (variant: red bull) and thus extinguished it. Astonishing how these things could remain intact and undiminished for many years!
Translated by Jason Colavito
Giraldus, Liber de Principis instructione, Distinctio I, folio 107b (c. 1193)
You must know that Arthur’s bones, which were found in that place (Glastonbury), were so big that in them the words of the poet seemed to find fulfillment:
The farmer … will … marvel at gigantic bones in the upturned graves. (Virgil, Georgics 1.497)
His tibia placed beside that of the tallest man in the place (whom the Abbot pointed out to me), and fixed into the earth by the side of his foot, extended fully three fingers’ breadth above the man’s knee. His skull bone also was capacious and large enough for a prodigy or a show—so much so that the interval between the eyelids and the space between the eyes might contain the size of a man’s palm fully. And in this were seen ten or more wounds, all of which, except one larger than the others and which had made a great gash, and which alone seemed to have caused death, had joined into a firm cicatrix.
Translation of the first sentence: Jason Colavito; Virgil quote: H. R. Fairclough in the Loeb Virgil (1916); remaining text: T. Holmes in William Howship Dickinson, King Arthur in Cornwall (1900).
The bones alleged to be those of King Arthur were allegedly unearthed at Glastonbury in 1191 beneath a cross with a Latin inscription identifying the occupants of the grave as Arthur and his wife, and Glastonbury as Avalon. Henry II had ordered the grave uncovered, and the monks obliged, conveniently finding a way to increase pilgrim visits (and benefit from their money) to restore their monastery, which had been destroyed by fire in 1184.
The farmer … will … marvel at gigantic bones in the upturned graves. (Virgil, Georgics 1.497)
His tibia placed beside that of the tallest man in the place (whom the Abbot pointed out to me), and fixed into the earth by the side of his foot, extended fully three fingers’ breadth above the man’s knee. His skull bone also was capacious and large enough for a prodigy or a show—so much so that the interval between the eyelids and the space between the eyes might contain the size of a man’s palm fully. And in this were seen ten or more wounds, all of which, except one larger than the others and which had made a great gash, and which alone seemed to have caused death, had joined into a firm cicatrix.
Translation of the first sentence: Jason Colavito; Virgil quote: H. R. Fairclough in the Loeb Virgil (1916); remaining text: T. Holmes in William Howship Dickinson, King Arthur in Cornwall (1900).
The bones alleged to be those of King Arthur were allegedly unearthed at Glastonbury in 1191 beneath a cross with a Latin inscription identifying the occupants of the grave as Arthur and his wife, and Glastonbury as Avalon. Henry II had ordered the grave uncovered, and the monks obliged, conveniently finding a way to increase pilgrim visits (and benefit from their money) to restore their monastery, which had been destroyed by fire in 1184.
Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum (c. 1227), folio 89b
On Giant Teeth
In the time of King Richard, on the seashore at Essex, in a village which was called Eadulphnesse, there were found two teeth of a certain giant, of such magnitude that two hundred of the teeth which men now have might be cut out of them. These teeth we saw at Coggeshall, and we handled them with plenty of admiration. A rib of this giant was also discovered in the same place, of astonishing size and breadth. There was found in the province of York, on the seashore, the head of a giant, which was capable of holding a summa (8 bushels) of grain. All of this bears witness to the truth of that which we read in the ancient histories about the bodies of the giants. And there was also seen by people known to us, in Gwalia, a young man of immense stature, whose height was five cubits, and great was the length and thickness of his fingers, but he was deprived of his strength by some chance during his adolescence. In the same province, in the same year, in a grassy plain there appeared human footprints of extraordinary length, and wherever these footprints had been pressed down, the grass remained scorched, as if by fire.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
In the time of King Richard, on the seashore at Essex, in a village which was called Eadulphnesse, there were found two teeth of a certain giant, of such magnitude that two hundred of the teeth which men now have might be cut out of them. These teeth we saw at Coggeshall, and we handled them with plenty of admiration. A rib of this giant was also discovered in the same place, of astonishing size and breadth. There was found in the province of York, on the seashore, the head of a giant, which was capable of holding a summa (8 bushels) of grain. All of this bears witness to the truth of that which we read in the ancient histories about the bodies of the giants. And there was also seen by people known to us, in Gwalia, a young man of immense stature, whose height was five cubits, and great was the length and thickness of his fingers, but he was deprived of his strength by some chance during his adolescence. In the same province, in the same year, in a grassy plain there appeared human footprints of extraordinary length, and wherever these footprints had been pressed down, the grass remained scorched, as if by fire.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Sir John Mandeville, The Travels (c. 1360)
Chapter 5
And whoso will go long time on the sea, and come nearer to Jerusalem, he shall go from Cyprus by sea to Port Jaffa. For that is the next haven to Jerusalem; for from that haven is not but one day journey and a half to Jerusalem. And the town is called Jaffa; for one of the sons of Noah that hight Japhet founded it, and now it is clept Joppa. And ye shall understand, that it is one of the oldest towns of the world, for it was founded before Noah’s flood. And yet there sheweth in the rock, there as the iron chains were fastened, that Andromeda, a great giant, was bounden with, and put in prison before Noah’s flood, of the which giant, is a rib of his side that is forty foot long.
Chapter 22
In one of these isles [beyond Java] be folk of great stature, as giants. And they be hideous for to look upon. And they have but one eye, and that is in the middle of the front. And they eat nothing but raw flesh and raw fish.
Chapter 31
After this [Prester John’s land], beyond the vale, is a great isle, where the folk be great giants of twenty-eight foot long, or of thirty foot long. And they have no clothing but of skins of beasts that they hang upon them. And they eat no bread, but all raw flesh; and they drink milk of beasts, for they have plenty of all bestial. And they have no houses to lie in. And they eat more gladly man’s flesh than any other flesh. Into that isle dare no man gladly enter. And if they see a ship and men therein, anon they enter into the sea for to take them.
And men said us, that in an isle beyond that were giants of greater stature, some of forty-five foot, or of fifty foot long, and, as some men say, some of fifty cubits long. But I saw none of those, for I had no lust to go to those parts, because that no man cometh neither into that isle ne into the other, but if he be devoured anon. And among those giants be sheep as great as oxen here, and they bear great wool and rough. Of the sheep I have seen many times. And men have seen, many times, those giants take men in the sea out of their ships, and brought them to land, two in one hand and two in another, eating them going, all raw and all quick.
And whoso will go long time on the sea, and come nearer to Jerusalem, he shall go from Cyprus by sea to Port Jaffa. For that is the next haven to Jerusalem; for from that haven is not but one day journey and a half to Jerusalem. And the town is called Jaffa; for one of the sons of Noah that hight Japhet founded it, and now it is clept Joppa. And ye shall understand, that it is one of the oldest towns of the world, for it was founded before Noah’s flood. And yet there sheweth in the rock, there as the iron chains were fastened, that Andromeda, a great giant, was bounden with, and put in prison before Noah’s flood, of the which giant, is a rib of his side that is forty foot long.
Chapter 22
In one of these isles [beyond Java] be folk of great stature, as giants. And they be hideous for to look upon. And they have but one eye, and that is in the middle of the front. And they eat nothing but raw flesh and raw fish.
Chapter 31
After this [Prester John’s land], beyond the vale, is a great isle, where the folk be great giants of twenty-eight foot long, or of thirty foot long. And they have no clothing but of skins of beasts that they hang upon them. And they eat no bread, but all raw flesh; and they drink milk of beasts, for they have plenty of all bestial. And they have no houses to lie in. And they eat more gladly man’s flesh than any other flesh. Into that isle dare no man gladly enter. And if they see a ship and men therein, anon they enter into the sea for to take them.
And men said us, that in an isle beyond that were giants of greater stature, some of forty-five foot, or of fifty foot long, and, as some men say, some of fifty cubits long. But I saw none of those, for I had no lust to go to those parts, because that no man cometh neither into that isle ne into the other, but if he be devoured anon. And among those giants be sheep as great as oxen here, and they bear great wool and rough. Of the sheep I have seen many times. And men have seen, many times, those giants take men in the sea out of their ships, and brought them to land, two in one hand and two in another, eating them going, all raw and all quick.
Unspecified Arabic manuscript from Baalbek (possibly medieval)
Quoted in French by Michel M. Alouf, in the Histoire de Baalbek (1890)
After the Deluge had flooded the whole earth and changed its face, it also destroyed the great edifice of Baalbek, the sole refuge of Cain. When Nimrod reigned in Lebanon, he then sent giants to rebuild the fortress of Baalbek, and from this it was given the name it bears to this day in honor of Baal, the god of the Moabites, and worshipers of the Sun.
Translated by Jason Colavito
After the Deluge had flooded the whole earth and changed its face, it also destroyed the great edifice of Baalbek, the sole refuge of Cain. When Nimrod reigned in Lebanon, he then sent giants to rebuild the fortress of Baalbek, and from this it was given the name it bears to this day in honor of Baal, the god of the Moabites, and worshipers of the Sun.
Translated by Jason Colavito
Ibn al-Furat, History of the Dynasties and Kingdoms (c. 1400)
Berke Khan often came [to the ambassadors of Bibar], and asked them many questions about Egypt, about elephants and giraffes. He once asked if it was true, as he had heard, that there was a giant bone placed across the Nile, which served as a bridge. The ambassadors replied that they had never seen anything like it.
Translated by Jason Colavito from the notes to Quatremere’s edition of Maqrizi. There, Quartremere adds that “We read in the History of the Conquest of Egypt, written by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (man. arab. 655, pag. 39), that the body of a giant named Uj, who was killed by Moses, fell across the Nile and became a bridge, which served as a passage.”
Translated by Jason Colavito from the notes to Quatremere’s edition of Maqrizi. There, Quartremere adds that “We read in the History of the Conquest of Egypt, written by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (man. arab. 655, pag. 39), that the body of a giant named Uj, who was killed by Moses, fell across the Nile and became a bridge, which served as a passage.”
Johann Schiltberger, Reisebuch chapter 44 (after 1427; published 1460)
44. — Of a Great Giant.
It is to be noted, that in Egypt there was a giant, who was called in the Infidel tongue, Allenklaisser. In this country is the city called Missir, but the Christians call it Kayr [i.e. Cairo], and it is the capital of the king-sultan. In this same city are twelve thousand baking ovens. Now the said giant was so strong, that one day he brought into the city a bundle of wood to heat all the ovens, and one bundle was enough; each baker gave him a loaf, which makes twelve thousand loaves. All these he ate in one day. The shin-bone of this giant is in Arabia, in a valley between two mountains. There is a deep valley between the rocks, where flows a river at such a depth that no person can see it, one only hears its rush. It is in this same valley that the shin-bone of the giant serves as a bridge; and whoever comes there, whether they are riding or on foot, must pass over this shin-bone. It is also on a road where traders pass, coming and going, because the defile is so narrow, that people cannot pass by any other way; and the Infidels say that this bone is one frysen [i.e. parasang—about 3 miles] in length, which is equal to an arrow's flight, or more. There, a toll is taken from traders; with the same, they buy oil to anoint the bone that it may not rot. It is not a long time since a king-sultan had a bridge built near the bone; it is about two hundred years [ago], according to an inscription on the bridge. When a lord comes there with many people, he passes over the bridge, and does not pass over the bone; but whoever wishes to pass over this wonder, may do so, that he may say of it that in this country there is an incredible thing, and which is nevertheless surely true. And if it were not true, or had I not seen it, I would not have spoken or written about it.
Translated by J. Buchan Telfer in The Bondage and Travels of Jacob Schiltberger (Hakluyt, 1879).
It is to be noted, that in Egypt there was a giant, who was called in the Infidel tongue, Allenklaisser. In this country is the city called Missir, but the Christians call it Kayr [i.e. Cairo], and it is the capital of the king-sultan. In this same city are twelve thousand baking ovens. Now the said giant was so strong, that one day he brought into the city a bundle of wood to heat all the ovens, and one bundle was enough; each baker gave him a loaf, which makes twelve thousand loaves. All these he ate in one day. The shin-bone of this giant is in Arabia, in a valley between two mountains. There is a deep valley between the rocks, where flows a river at such a depth that no person can see it, one only hears its rush. It is in this same valley that the shin-bone of the giant serves as a bridge; and whoever comes there, whether they are riding or on foot, must pass over this shin-bone. It is also on a road where traders pass, coming and going, because the defile is so narrow, that people cannot pass by any other way; and the Infidels say that this bone is one frysen [i.e. parasang—about 3 miles] in length, which is equal to an arrow's flight, or more. There, a toll is taken from traders; with the same, they buy oil to anoint the bone that it may not rot. It is not a long time since a king-sultan had a bridge built near the bone; it is about two hundred years [ago], according to an inscription on the bridge. When a lord comes there with many people, he passes over the bridge, and does not pass over the bone; but whoever wishes to pass over this wonder, may do so, that he may say of it that in this country there is an incredible thing, and which is nevertheless surely true. And if it were not true, or had I not seen it, I would not have spoken or written about it.
Translated by J. Buchan Telfer in The Bondage and Travels of Jacob Schiltberger (Hakluyt, 1879).
Peter Martyr, Decades 5.9 (1523)
I wish to end this chapter with an account of giants, who, like the formidable and solid Atlas, will serve as an ending, and will support the outlines of what I have established. Diego de Ordaz, whom I have mentioned above, explored many of the hidden places of this land, and he pacified many chiefs: one of whom in particular is of the province where the money tree grows, where he [Ordaz] learned how the money tree is planted and grown, just as I had explained in his section [of my book]. He discovered in the vault of a temple a piece of the thigh bone of a Giant, worn and partially gnawed away by extreme age: A short time after your Holiness [Pope Adrian VI] had departed for Rome, the licentiate Allyón, one of the jurisconsults of the Hispaniola Senate, bought this thigh bone to the city of Victoria. This I had in my house for some days: From the knot of the hip to the knee it is five spans long, and proportionate in accordance with its great length. After this, those sent by Cortés to the Southern mountains reported that they had found the region where these men lived, and they were said, in proof of this, to have brought back a great many ribs from the dead.
Translated by Jason Colavito from the Latin edition of 1530.
Diego de Ordaz was a Spanish explorer searching for El Dorado. The bone described above was sent to Spain in 1521, and the author had it in 1522. The bone is almost certainly that of an Ice Age mammal.
Translated by Jason Colavito from the Latin edition of 1530.
Diego de Ordaz was a Spanish explorer searching for El Dorado. The bone described above was sent to Spain in 1521, and the author had it in 1522. The bone is almost certainly that of an Ice Age mammal.
Wenceslas Hajek, Annales Bohemorum (Kronyka Czeská) (before 1553)
YEAR 785
... At Tetín, some people were excavating the foundation for underground vaults, and they encountered among the rubble a human head of such extraordinary size that two men could scarcely wrap their arms around the skull. They reported that the other bones of the body were equally vast, especially the legs at twenty-five feet and nine inches, or twelve and a half Prague cubits. This comprised the remains of a most ancient giant. These were not destroyed, and by order of the Prince of Tetín they were affixed to the gates, suspended there for some time as a wonder.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
... At Tetín, some people were excavating the foundation for underground vaults, and they encountered among the rubble a human head of such extraordinary size that two men could scarcely wrap their arms around the skull. They reported that the other bones of the body were equally vast, especially the legs at twenty-five feet and nine inches, or twelve and a half Prague cubits. This comprised the remains of a most ancient giant. These were not destroyed, and by order of the Prince of Tetín they were affixed to the gates, suspended there for some time as a wonder.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Pedro Cieza de Leon, First Part of the Chronicle of Peru, Chapter 52 (1553)
There are, however, reports concerning giants in Peru, who landed on the coast at the point of Santa Elena, within the jurisdiction of this city of Puerto Viejo, which require notice. I will relate what I have been told, without paying attention to the various versions of the story current among the vulgar, who always exaggerate everything. The natives relate the following tradition, which had been received from their ancestors from very remote times. There arrived on the coast, in boats made of reeds, as big as large ships, a party of men of such size that, from the knee downwards, their height was as great as the entire height of an ordinary man, though he might be of good stature. Their limbs were all in proportion to the deformed size of their bodies, and it was a monstrous thing to see their heads, with hair reaching to the shoulders. Their eyes were as large as small plates. They had no beards, and were dressed in the skins of animals, others only in the dress which nature gave them, and they had no women with them. When they arrived at this point, they made a sort of village, and even now the sites of their houses are pointed out. But as they found no water, in order to remedy the want, they made some very deep wells, works which are truly worthy of remembrance; for such are their magnitude, that they certainly must have been executed by very strong men. They dug these wells in the living rock until they met with water, and then they lined them with masonry from top to bottom in such sort that they will endure for many ages. The water in these wells is very good and wholesome, and always so cold that it is very pleasant to drink it. Having built their village, and made their wells or cisterns where they could drink, these great men, or giants, consumed all the provisions they could lay their hands upon in the surrounding country; insomuch that one of them ate more meat than fifty of the natives of the country could. As all the food they could find was not sufficient to sustain them, they killed many fish in the sea with nets and other gear. They were detested by the natives, because in using their women they killed them, and the men also in another way. But the Indians were not sufficiently numerous to destroy this new people who had come to occupy their lands. They made great leagues against them, but met with no success. After a few years of these giants being yet in these parts, either they began missing their own women and the natural agreement of their bodies for their height, or perhaps it was due to the counsel and inducement of the accursed Devil, but they began to indulge in vice, including using one another for the heinous sin of sodomy, both grave and horrendous, which they performed and committed publicly and openly, without fear of God and little ashamed of themselves. All the natives declare that God our Lord brought upon them a punishment in proportion to the enormity of their offence. While they were all together, engaged in their accursed sodomy, a fearful and terrible fire came down from heaven with a great noise, out of the midst of which there issued a shining angel with a glittering sword, with which, at one blow, they were all killed, and the fire consumed them. There only remained a few bones and skulls, which God allowed to remain without being consumed by the fire, as a memorial of this punishment. This is what they say concerning these giants, and we believe the account, because in this neighborhood they have found, and still find, enormous bones. I have heard from Spaniards who have seen part of a double tooth, that they judged the whole tooth would have weighed more than half a butcher’s pound. They also have seen another piece of a shin bone, and it was marvellous to relate how large it was. These men are witnesses to the story, and the site of the village may be seen, as well as the wells and cisterns made by the giants. I am unable to say from what direction they came, because I do not know.
Translated by Sir Clements R. Markham in The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon, A.D. 1532-1550 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1864), to which I have added from the original Spanish passages on sodomy omitted by Markham as unfit for publication. Markham notes that the place described as the habitat of the giants is a known fossil bed of Ice Age mammals, the likely inspiration for the story.
Translated by Sir Clements R. Markham in The Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon, A.D. 1532-1550 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1864), to which I have added from the original Spanish passages on sodomy omitted by Markham as unfit for publication. Markham notes that the place described as the habitat of the giants is a known fossil bed of Ice Age mammals, the likely inspiration for the story.
Agustín de Zárate, History of the Discovery and Conquest of Peru 1.5 (1555)
Around this country, on a promontory that the Spanish call Santa Elena, there are certain veins extending into the sea which contain bitumen, which looks like alquitran, and the Indians say that giants of great stature inhabited the land at this point, four times as large as a man. They do not say whence these came, but they sustained themselves on the same foodstuffs, according to these same Indians, especially fish, because they were great fishermen, and went in balsas, each one in his own, because the rafts could not carry more than one, though they could carry three horses. They could wade into the sea to two fathoms and a half, and disported themselves in taking many types of sharks, dolphins, and other large fish. But because they needed to eat so much, each one ate more than thirty Indians. And they went naked because of the difficulty they had in making themselves clothes, and they were so cruel that without any apparent cause they would kill many Indians, who greatly feared them. The Spaniards in Puerto Viejo saw two massive sculptured figures of these giants, a male and female, and that the Indians preserved from father to son many particulars of the giants, especially as concerned their end, which was brought about by the advent from heaven of a young man, shining like the sun, who drove the giants into a valley and killed them with flames of fire, marks of which remain upon the rocks still. Yet everyone gave little credence to what these Indians said until the time when Captain Juan de Olmos of Trujillo, Lieutenant to the Governor of Puerto Viejo, in 1543, hearing about them, caused excavations to be made in the valley, which laid bare enormous ribs and bones, which if they had not appeared with their heads, would not have been believed to be of human beings. But with this confirmation, and seeing the marks of the thunderbolts on the rocks, what the Indians had said was taken for true. They sent to different parts of Peru some teeth that had been found there, each of which was three fingers wide and four fingers long. These things have convinced the Spaniards that it is as they said, that these people were much given to unnatural vice and divine justice removed them from the Earth, sending some angel for them, as happened at Sodom and other places…
Adapted, expanded, and corrected by Jason Colavito form the translation of Charles Reginald Enock.
Adapted, expanded, and corrected by Jason Colavito form the translation of Charles Reginald Enock.
Tommaso Fazello, On Sicilian Things 1.1.6 (1558)
Calatrasi, not far from Entella, is a castle whose master died in the year 1550, at which time the inhabitants dug a tomb for him in a temple. In the little temple, they fell into a small chamber below the floor, and in it they found the remains of a man about twenty-two cubits long. His stature stupefied them, but freeing his head, which measured about ten feet around, they soon set it up for the purpose of making amusement and sport of it. They assaulted it by throwing stones at it, and it crumbled away, with the teeth alone surviving. Whatever parts were still below ground, they returned to the earth.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Hieronymus Magius, Variarum Lectionum 1.4 (1564)
Melchior Guilandinus Borossus, my friend, a man with absolute knowledge of all disciplines, and of all the plants and fossils, and other things which are pertinent to the teachings of medicine, and of the first principles of our age, a few days ago was conversing with me on all manner of things, and among these, mention was made of Giants. He told me himself that during the year 1559, when he was taken captive in Africa, he saw the skull of Julius Caesar, appearing in size as that of a Giant, which two Spanish prisoners had unearthed in plowing the land, dug out of the ground, and brought to King Hasan, son of Hayreddin Barbarossa, as a wonder and therefore sought their freedom, along with a very large crowd, whose hopes, however, were disappointed when the Barbarian king, entirely an amousos (cretin) and no more enthusiastic about antiquity, feigning admiration, ordered them paid five Venetian aurei (ducats) apiece in place of the freedom they sought. The circumference of the skull was eleven spans, the same as he had been told by the Spaniards themselves when he had quickly and diligently investigated the thing and heard that in the same place where the skull was found, the rest of the marvelous bones of the body, similar in proportion and of great size, yet remained.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, True History of the Conquest of New Spain, Chapter 78 (c. 1570)
Our friends [Xicotencatl of the Tlaxcaltecs and Maxixcatzin of Ocotelolco, two kings] told us how and whence they [the Aztecs] came into this country, and how they had settled themselves there; how it came that, notwithstanding their vicinity to the Mexicans, they resembled each other so little, and lived in perpetual warfare with each other. The tradition was also handed down from their forefathers, that in ancient times there lived here a race of men and women who were of immense stature with heavy bones, and were a very bad and evil-disposed people, whom they had for the greater part exterminated by continual war, and the few that were left gradually died away.
In order to give us a notion of the huge frame of this people, they dragged forth a bone, or rather a thigh bone, of one of those giants, which was very strong, and measured the length of a man of good stature. This bone was still entire from the knee to the hip joint. I measured it by my own person, and found it to be of my own length, although I am a man of considerable height. They showed us many similar pieces of bones, but they were all worm-eaten and decayed; we, however, did not doubt for an instant, that this country was once inhabited by giants. Cortes observed, that we ought to forward these bones to his majesty in Spain by the very first opportunity.
Translated by John Ingram Lockhart (1844).
In order to give us a notion of the huge frame of this people, they dragged forth a bone, or rather a thigh bone, of one of those giants, which was very strong, and measured the length of a man of good stature. This bone was still entire from the knee to the hip joint. I measured it by my own person, and found it to be of my own length, although I am a man of considerable height. They showed us many similar pieces of bones, but they were all worm-eaten and decayed; we, however, did not doubt for an instant, that this country was once inhabited by giants. Cortes observed, that we ought to forward these bones to his majesty in Spain by the very first opportunity.
Translated by John Ingram Lockhart (1844).
Felix Platter, Observationes Medicae, Book 3 (1602)
Anno 1584. In the Month of July, being at Lucerne I was there shew’d by the Senators the fragments of some bones of a prodigious greatness, kept in the Senate House. They were found in the Territories, not far from the Monastery, of Reiden, in a Cave of the adjoyning Mountain, under an old Oak, which the wind had blown down: When I had consider’d them, and perceiv’d most of the lesser sort, and such as are thinnest, (as the bones of the skull) to be wanting, whether neglected, or consumed by age, I know not: I then turned over the greater sort, as well such as were whole, as the remainders of such as were broken. Though they were wasted, spungy and light, (yet as far as I could discern) I observed, that they answered to the body of a man: I wrote upon each of them what they were and I the rather concluded them to be the bones of some Giant, because I found amongst them the lowest bone of the thumb, a cheek-tooth, the heel bone, the shoulder-blades, the Cannel-bone, which are only found in man of that form. Also the long and thick bones of the Thighs, Legs, Shoulders and Arms (the utmost ends of which with their heads were found) and they differed in nothing from the bone of a humane body. Having afterwards all the bones sent me to Basil (by the command of the Magistrates.) and looking diligently upon them, and comparing them with a Skeleton of mine own (as well the whole as the broken) I was confirm’d in my opinion, and caused an entire skeleton to be drawn, of such greatness, as all those bones would have made, if they had been whole and together, it amounted to full nineteen foot in height: and since no Beast is found of that stature, it is the more probable they were the bones of a Giant.
Translated by Nathaniel Wanley in The Wonders of the Little World (1678).
The bones were uncovered in 1577 and kept in the Lucerne Senate.
Translated by Nathaniel Wanley in The Wonders of the Little World (1678).
The bones were uncovered in 1577 and kept in the Lucerne Senate.
James Selden, “Illustrations” to Michael Drayton, Poly-Obion, Song 1 (1612)
Note: The accompanying notes are those of Selden.
If you trust our stories, you must believe the land then peopled with giants, of vast bodily composture. I have read of the Nephilim, the Rephaiim, Anakim, Og, Goliath, and other in holy writ: of Mars, Tityus, Antaeus, Turnus, and the Titans in Homer, Virgil, Ovid; and of Adam’s stature (according to Jewish [1] fiction) equalling at first the world’s diameter; yet seeing that Nature (now as fertile as of old) hath in her effects determinate limits of quantity, that in Aristotle’s [2] time (near two thousand years since) their beds were but six foot ordinarily (nor is the difference, twixt oars and Greek dimension, much) and that near the same length was our Saviour’s sepulchre, as Adamnan informed [3] king Alfrid; I could think that there now are some as great statures, as for the most part have been, and that giants were bat of a somewhat more than vulgar [4] excellence in body, and martial performance. If you object the finding of great boats, which, measured by proportion, largely exceed our times; I first answer, that in some singulars, as monsters rather than natural, such proof hath been; but withal, that both now and of ancient time [5], the eye’s judgment in such like hath been, and is, subject to much imposture; mistaking bones of huge beasts for human. Claudius [6] brought over his elephants hither, and perhaps Julius Caesar some, (for I have read [7] that he terribly affrighted the Britons with sight of one at Cowaystakes) and so may you be deceived. But this is no place to examine, it.
[1] Rabbi Eleazar apud Riccium in epit. Talmud, caeterum in hac re allegoriam v. apud D. Cyprian, serm. de montihus Sina & Sion.
[2] Προβλημ. μηχ. xi.
[3] Bed. hist. Ecclesiast. 5. c. 17.
[4] Ευμεγέθες: χαὶ ἐπισταμενοι πόλεμον. Baruch. cap. γ. Console, si placet, Scaliger. exercitation. Becan. becceselan. 2. August Civ. Dei. 15. c. 23. Clem. Rom. recognit. 1. Lactant. &c.
[5] Sueton. in Octav. c. 72
[6] Dio Cass. lib. ξ.
[7] Polyæn. stratagemat. η. in Caesare.
If you trust our stories, you must believe the land then peopled with giants, of vast bodily composture. I have read of the Nephilim, the Rephaiim, Anakim, Og, Goliath, and other in holy writ: of Mars, Tityus, Antaeus, Turnus, and the Titans in Homer, Virgil, Ovid; and of Adam’s stature (according to Jewish [1] fiction) equalling at first the world’s diameter; yet seeing that Nature (now as fertile as of old) hath in her effects determinate limits of quantity, that in Aristotle’s [2] time (near two thousand years since) their beds were but six foot ordinarily (nor is the difference, twixt oars and Greek dimension, much) and that near the same length was our Saviour’s sepulchre, as Adamnan informed [3] king Alfrid; I could think that there now are some as great statures, as for the most part have been, and that giants were bat of a somewhat more than vulgar [4] excellence in body, and martial performance. If you object the finding of great boats, which, measured by proportion, largely exceed our times; I first answer, that in some singulars, as monsters rather than natural, such proof hath been; but withal, that both now and of ancient time [5], the eye’s judgment in such like hath been, and is, subject to much imposture; mistaking bones of huge beasts for human. Claudius [6] brought over his elephants hither, and perhaps Julius Caesar some, (for I have read [7] that he terribly affrighted the Britons with sight of one at Cowaystakes) and so may you be deceived. But this is no place to examine, it.
[1] Rabbi Eleazar apud Riccium in epit. Talmud, caeterum in hac re allegoriam v. apud D. Cyprian, serm. de montihus Sina & Sion.
[2] Προβλημ. μηχ. xi.
[3] Bed. hist. Ecclesiast. 5. c. 17.
[4] Ευμεγέθες: χαὶ ἐπισταμενοι πόλεμον. Baruch. cap. γ. Console, si placet, Scaliger. exercitation. Becan. becceselan. 2. August Civ. Dei. 15. c. 23. Clem. Rom. recognit. 1. Lactant. &c.
[5] Sueton. in Octav. c. 72
[6] Dio Cass. lib. ξ.
[7] Polyæn. stratagemat. η. in Caesare.
Jacques Tissot, True Account of the Life, Death, and of the Bones of the Giant Teutobochus (1613)
Among all the effects which Nature, that great mother and maker of all things, has ever produced under Heaven, the enormous size of certain persons, vulgarly called giants, has always held the first rank in the theater of marvels; to which is witness the Holy Scriptures, in the description of the destruction of that tower of confusion, namely the tower of Babel; witness are the poets in their gigantomachies, witness is the wonder with which the historians describe these strange colossi, witness finally is the etymology of their name "giant", which means nothing other than son of the earth; as if it would not have been in the power of men to engender them; which caused Juvenal to say:
Unde fit ut malim fraterculus esse gigantum. [Hence it is, that I had rather be a little brother of the giants. (trans. Martin Madan)]
Meaning, of a race as obscure and unknown as if produced by the earth alone; and, what is more, those who did not wish to creep so low dared to assert that their progenitors were none other than genii and demons, as if that begetting were impossible to men, and as if Nature had no other recourse to raise so high these strange colossi. Is it not very probable that that great architecture could provide them with an extreme heat and humor together, true instruments and true causes of that enormous size, and by that means put into practice the axiom: Operatur natura quantum, et quandiu potest [Nature works as largely and as far as she can], without, however, making any leap ab extremis ad extrema : natura enim in suis operationibus non facit saltum. [from extremes to extremes: for Nature in her works does not make leaps].
It is thus true, both that there could have been giants on earth, and that they could have had men for their progenitors, not only before the deluge, but likewise long after; and in that connection, before passing to profane sources, the learned St. Augustine argues for me, when he recounts that a little before the ruin of Rome by the Goths, there was in that city a woman of the size of a giant, whose parents did not surpass the common measure of the stature of other men. And indeed, whence would have been engendered Goliath, from what heaven would Og, king of Basan, have fallen; the first being six cubits and a span in height, according to Samuel, and the bed of the second, which was of iron, being nine cubits long, the cubit, according to the reckoning of the Greeks, being two feet, and according to the Romans, a foot and a half? Furthermore, do I not see the Israelites seem like grasshoppers in the sight of the sons of Anak? Do I not hear all antiquity pronounce against those who, by a more than earthly arrogance, dare to deny that men of such size have ever walked the earth? In the first instance, Plutarch, in the heart of antiquity, relates that Sertorius, having entered the town of Tingis, in which the Libyans had told him the body of Antaeus was, which he could not believe because of the size of the grave, had it opened, and finding the body of a man thirty cubits long, was greatly astonished, and after making sacrifice on it, had the grave reclosed. Pliny will give us the second, saying that in Crete, now named Candia, a great earthquake having occurred, and a mountain having been thrown down, the body of an upright man was found, being forty-six cubits, which some thought was that of Orion, and others that of Otus. Philostratus, in his Heroicus, describes for us three of at least the like size, with no less wonder, the skull roof of one of which he recounts not being able to fill up with 72 Cretan pints of wine. [Here follows another page and a half of citations from classical sources, which are all discussed in Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters. L.T.]
But why do I take such pains to represent before your eyes those great bodies as if by an image, since M. Langon, a gentleman from the Dauphiné, has discovered a real and natural one on his lands, which all France has before its eyes; one, I say, which, if not sixty cubits high, like Antaeus; if not forty-six, like Orion and others, nonetheless cannot fail to seize with great wonder those who have the fortune to see it, at the very least the principal bones, whose size give us the measure of his height, causing the eye to judge him at least twenty feet tall; the thigh and shin bone, joined together before they were broken, now come to nine feet, although denuded of the foot joints and like things. But let us not merely inquire what his size is, let us seek what his name may be. Besides that the name Teutobocus was found on his grave, Florus will inform you of it in his Book III, chapter 3, on the war with the Cimbri, Teutones, and Tigurini, describing his extraordinary height, in which he much surpassed the trophies, and that he passed over four and six horses.
Certe Rex ipse Theutobocus quaternos senosque equos transilire solitus, vix unum cum fugeret ascendit, proximoque in saltu comprehensus insigne spectaculum triumphi fuit, quippe vir proceritatis eximia super trophea ipsa eminebat. [Their king himself, Teutobochus, who was accustomed to vault over four or six horses at once, could scarcely mount one when he fled, and being taken prisoner in the neighboring forest, was a remarkable object in the triumph, for, being a man of extraordinary stature, he towered above the trophies themselves. (trans. John Selby Watson.)]
But with the aim of searching history a bit more closely, it can be discovered that in the 652nd year of the founding of Rome, and the 105th before the incarnation of our Savior, the Cimbri, Teutones, Tigurini, and Ambrones, leaving their country, either because of the ravages which the ocean had made flooding their lands, as Florus says, or with the resolution to overthrow and destroy the entire Roman empire, as Orosius says, or with some other intention and goal, having built up a great and numerous army, came to attack the camp of Marius, placed not far from the confluence of the Rhone and the Isère, and, after having fought for several days, and forming three companies, some of them took the road for Italy and gave Marius the leisure to change his camp and locate it in a more advantageous place, establishing it on a little hill above the enemies; this having been done, and combat being joined, the victory having remained undecided until mid-day, finally luck turned against the Tigurini and the Ambrones, in such fashion that three thousand having saved themselves with great difficulty, two hundred thousand remained on the field and eighty thousand were made prisoner, among whom their king Teutobocus glorified the trophies by his death. The women, incidentally, not having been able to obtain the freedom which they requested from Marius, and in order to serve their gods, after having dashed their children against the walls, some of them mutually killed each other and some hanged themselves with ropes made from their own hair. And this is what Orosius says in the above-mentioned account. I know well that some, under the authority of Plutarch and Florus, will object that Marius defeated these troops at Aix and Marseilles, and that the citizens of Marseilles even enclosed their vineyards with hedges built of the bones of the dead, so great was the destruction. But in response, the great number of people of which that army was composed demonstrates that Marius did not defeat them all at once; besides that, since we have already said that they divided themselves into three companies, one taking the road for Italy, one closely pressing Marius, it is probable that the third was that which Plutarch says was defeated at Aix and Marseilles; and although Florus confuses the death of Teutobocus with the defeat which Marius caused at Aix, nonetheless, both because they were truly his people, and by the authority of Orosius, and also because we find the size specified by Florus, no one can fail to concede that our giant is the true Teutobocus. And even if we did not have that proof that they were defeated near the castle of Chaumont, now called Langon; by the medals which were found in his tomb, which, besides that the name of Marius is shown on them in the figure, resemble those said to be Marius’ at the amphitheater of Orange, all occasion for doubt is taken away from those who are so obstinate as to not wish to believe that there could still be such giants in our times, those whose hearts and minds are so earthbound. Now, because his name is sufficiently certain, let us speak more particularly of certain other parts of his body, and fulfil the prophecy of Virgil,
Grandiaq’ effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris. [They will wonder at the great bones dug up from their graves.]
Among the rest, let us not let the teeth escape us; so far from being able to say what the learned Saint Augustine did about the tooth he saw beside the sea in Utica, that it could be judged to be a hundred times larger than any tooth of our age, on the contrary I would dare to double that number in speaking of the least of those of our Teutobocus, each of which entirely resembles, both in shape and in size, the foot of a bull of twenty months; if one may judge of the lion by its claw, I leave you to imagine what sort of mouth like a furnace he must have had; and, in order to shorten my account, leaving aside parts of a rib and a shoulder, similar to other bones which may be easily seen, I will speak only of the thickness of the vertebrae of the backbone, by the dimensions of which you may truly know how high this great body was raised; and I believe that there is no one with any experience in such matters who would not judge him to have surpassed twenty-five feet, each of the vertebrae being much more than a third of a foot thick, even approaching half a foot before being broken. I leave it to the reader to carry out the calculation, there being twenty-eight vertebrae besides the three of the tail, all similar, and I am certain and dare to say that he in no way gives the lie to his tomb, which was found to be thirty feet long.
This much is what I, with my little ability, have been able to tell you of Teutobocus, king, if not of all, at least of a part of the Cimbri, Tigurini, Teutones and Ambrones, found this present year 1613, about seventeen or eighteen feet underground, very close to the castle formerly called Chaumont, now Langon, near a little mound and hill7, for the greater glory of God, and after Him in honor of the sieur de Langon.
By his very humble servant,
Jacques Tissot.
Translated by Levana Taylor (2009); used under Creative Commons licence via Wikisource.
Unde fit ut malim fraterculus esse gigantum. [Hence it is, that I had rather be a little brother of the giants. (trans. Martin Madan)]
Meaning, of a race as obscure and unknown as if produced by the earth alone; and, what is more, those who did not wish to creep so low dared to assert that their progenitors were none other than genii and demons, as if that begetting were impossible to men, and as if Nature had no other recourse to raise so high these strange colossi. Is it not very probable that that great architecture could provide them with an extreme heat and humor together, true instruments and true causes of that enormous size, and by that means put into practice the axiom: Operatur natura quantum, et quandiu potest [Nature works as largely and as far as she can], without, however, making any leap ab extremis ad extrema : natura enim in suis operationibus non facit saltum. [from extremes to extremes: for Nature in her works does not make leaps].
It is thus true, both that there could have been giants on earth, and that they could have had men for their progenitors, not only before the deluge, but likewise long after; and in that connection, before passing to profane sources, the learned St. Augustine argues for me, when he recounts that a little before the ruin of Rome by the Goths, there was in that city a woman of the size of a giant, whose parents did not surpass the common measure of the stature of other men. And indeed, whence would have been engendered Goliath, from what heaven would Og, king of Basan, have fallen; the first being six cubits and a span in height, according to Samuel, and the bed of the second, which was of iron, being nine cubits long, the cubit, according to the reckoning of the Greeks, being two feet, and according to the Romans, a foot and a half? Furthermore, do I not see the Israelites seem like grasshoppers in the sight of the sons of Anak? Do I not hear all antiquity pronounce against those who, by a more than earthly arrogance, dare to deny that men of such size have ever walked the earth? In the first instance, Plutarch, in the heart of antiquity, relates that Sertorius, having entered the town of Tingis, in which the Libyans had told him the body of Antaeus was, which he could not believe because of the size of the grave, had it opened, and finding the body of a man thirty cubits long, was greatly astonished, and after making sacrifice on it, had the grave reclosed. Pliny will give us the second, saying that in Crete, now named Candia, a great earthquake having occurred, and a mountain having been thrown down, the body of an upright man was found, being forty-six cubits, which some thought was that of Orion, and others that of Otus. Philostratus, in his Heroicus, describes for us three of at least the like size, with no less wonder, the skull roof of one of which he recounts not being able to fill up with 72 Cretan pints of wine. [Here follows another page and a half of citations from classical sources, which are all discussed in Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters. L.T.]
But why do I take such pains to represent before your eyes those great bodies as if by an image, since M. Langon, a gentleman from the Dauphiné, has discovered a real and natural one on his lands, which all France has before its eyes; one, I say, which, if not sixty cubits high, like Antaeus; if not forty-six, like Orion and others, nonetheless cannot fail to seize with great wonder those who have the fortune to see it, at the very least the principal bones, whose size give us the measure of his height, causing the eye to judge him at least twenty feet tall; the thigh and shin bone, joined together before they were broken, now come to nine feet, although denuded of the foot joints and like things. But let us not merely inquire what his size is, let us seek what his name may be. Besides that the name Teutobocus was found on his grave, Florus will inform you of it in his Book III, chapter 3, on the war with the Cimbri, Teutones, and Tigurini, describing his extraordinary height, in which he much surpassed the trophies, and that he passed over four and six horses.
Certe Rex ipse Theutobocus quaternos senosque equos transilire solitus, vix unum cum fugeret ascendit, proximoque in saltu comprehensus insigne spectaculum triumphi fuit, quippe vir proceritatis eximia super trophea ipsa eminebat. [Their king himself, Teutobochus, who was accustomed to vault over four or six horses at once, could scarcely mount one when he fled, and being taken prisoner in the neighboring forest, was a remarkable object in the triumph, for, being a man of extraordinary stature, he towered above the trophies themselves. (trans. John Selby Watson.)]
But with the aim of searching history a bit more closely, it can be discovered that in the 652nd year of the founding of Rome, and the 105th before the incarnation of our Savior, the Cimbri, Teutones, Tigurini, and Ambrones, leaving their country, either because of the ravages which the ocean had made flooding their lands, as Florus says, or with the resolution to overthrow and destroy the entire Roman empire, as Orosius says, or with some other intention and goal, having built up a great and numerous army, came to attack the camp of Marius, placed not far from the confluence of the Rhone and the Isère, and, after having fought for several days, and forming three companies, some of them took the road for Italy and gave Marius the leisure to change his camp and locate it in a more advantageous place, establishing it on a little hill above the enemies; this having been done, and combat being joined, the victory having remained undecided until mid-day, finally luck turned against the Tigurini and the Ambrones, in such fashion that three thousand having saved themselves with great difficulty, two hundred thousand remained on the field and eighty thousand were made prisoner, among whom their king Teutobocus glorified the trophies by his death. The women, incidentally, not having been able to obtain the freedom which they requested from Marius, and in order to serve their gods, after having dashed their children against the walls, some of them mutually killed each other and some hanged themselves with ropes made from their own hair. And this is what Orosius says in the above-mentioned account. I know well that some, under the authority of Plutarch and Florus, will object that Marius defeated these troops at Aix and Marseilles, and that the citizens of Marseilles even enclosed their vineyards with hedges built of the bones of the dead, so great was the destruction. But in response, the great number of people of which that army was composed demonstrates that Marius did not defeat them all at once; besides that, since we have already said that they divided themselves into three companies, one taking the road for Italy, one closely pressing Marius, it is probable that the third was that which Plutarch says was defeated at Aix and Marseilles; and although Florus confuses the death of Teutobocus with the defeat which Marius caused at Aix, nonetheless, both because they were truly his people, and by the authority of Orosius, and also because we find the size specified by Florus, no one can fail to concede that our giant is the true Teutobocus. And even if we did not have that proof that they were defeated near the castle of Chaumont, now called Langon; by the medals which were found in his tomb, which, besides that the name of Marius is shown on them in the figure, resemble those said to be Marius’ at the amphitheater of Orange, all occasion for doubt is taken away from those who are so obstinate as to not wish to believe that there could still be such giants in our times, those whose hearts and minds are so earthbound. Now, because his name is sufficiently certain, let us speak more particularly of certain other parts of his body, and fulfil the prophecy of Virgil,
Grandiaq’ effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris. [They will wonder at the great bones dug up from their graves.]
Among the rest, let us not let the teeth escape us; so far from being able to say what the learned Saint Augustine did about the tooth he saw beside the sea in Utica, that it could be judged to be a hundred times larger than any tooth of our age, on the contrary I would dare to double that number in speaking of the least of those of our Teutobocus, each of which entirely resembles, both in shape and in size, the foot of a bull of twenty months; if one may judge of the lion by its claw, I leave you to imagine what sort of mouth like a furnace he must have had; and, in order to shorten my account, leaving aside parts of a rib and a shoulder, similar to other bones which may be easily seen, I will speak only of the thickness of the vertebrae of the backbone, by the dimensions of which you may truly know how high this great body was raised; and I believe that there is no one with any experience in such matters who would not judge him to have surpassed twenty-five feet, each of the vertebrae being much more than a third of a foot thick, even approaching half a foot before being broken. I leave it to the reader to carry out the calculation, there being twenty-eight vertebrae besides the three of the tail, all similar, and I am certain and dare to say that he in no way gives the lie to his tomb, which was found to be thirty feet long.
This much is what I, with my little ability, have been able to tell you of Teutobocus, king, if not of all, at least of a part of the Cimbri, Tigurini, Teutones and Ambrones, found this present year 1613, about seventeen or eighteen feet underground, very close to the castle formerly called Chaumont, now Langon, near a little mound and hill7, for the greater glory of God, and after Him in honor of the sieur de Langon.
By his very humble servant,
Jacques Tissot.
Translated by Levana Taylor (2009); used under Creative Commons licence via Wikisource.
Sir Jean Chardin, Travels in Persia (1686)
The 30. [of May, 1673] we travell’d a Road that was even enough, but winding among Hills. After two hours travel we pass’d by the Ruins of a great City, which they said had flourish’d there in former times; but being almost ruin’d was utterly destroy’d by Abas. Upon the left hand of the Road are to be seen large Circles of Hew’n Stone; which the Persians affirm to be a great sign, that the Caous making war in Media, held a Counsel in that place: it being the Custom of those People, that every Officer that came to the Council brought with him a Stone to serve him instead of a Chair. And these Caous were a sort of Gyants. Herodotus also reports somthing like to this, of a Persian Army that went against the Scythians; for he tells you that the Army being in Thrace, Darius shew’d ’em a place, and commanded that every one should lay a Stone therein as he pass’d along. But that which is most to be admir’d, after observation of these Stones, is this, that they are so big that eight Men can hardly move one, and yet there is no place from whence they can be imagin’d to have been fetch’d, but from the next Mountains, that are six Leagues off.
From the English edition of 1686.
From the English edition of 1686.
Claude Comiers d'Ambrun, "Histoire générale des géants" (1692)
I am obliged to speak of what the Father Hierome des Monceaux, Capuchin missionary of the Rue Saint Honore, just told me about the skeleton of a giant 96 feet long, which was found last September, in the wall of the village of Cailloubella, which they call Chailliot, six leagues from Thessalonica in Macedonia. Here are the other particulars, as they were written from the island of Scio by the Father Hierome de Rhetel of the same Order, a missionary in the Levant.
The skull was found whole. They filled it with wheat, and it held six quilots, which weighed 210 Parisian pounds, which is equivalent to 10 and a half bushels by Paris measure. I have here the original of the letter.
A tooth, which had come from the lower jaw, having been pulled out, weighed fifteen pounds. It was a pan in height, which is seven inches and two lines by royal measure. The last phalange, that is, the littlest bone of the smallest toe of the foot, was also a pan long.
One of the arm bones, from the elbow to the wrist, was four pans in circumference, which is two feet four inches and eight lines. Two Captains were able to place in the crux of this bone their arms wearing their jackets and “just-in-hands” with large sleeves. M. Quenet, the consul of our nation in Thessalonica, made a report on October 12 for the Authentic Acts of the Chancellery. He was awarded by the Pasha the principal pieces of the skeleton, and he accepted the other pieces, which were seized from private individuals. These he sent to His Majesty.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Note: The original letter of Jérôme de Rhetel was published by Jacques Grou in the Relation veritable de la grandeur prodigieuse du corps d'un geant trouvé dans le royaume de Macedoine en Grece in 1692. I unfortunately do not have access to this text.
The skull was found whole. They filled it with wheat, and it held six quilots, which weighed 210 Parisian pounds, which is equivalent to 10 and a half bushels by Paris measure. I have here the original of the letter.
A tooth, which had come from the lower jaw, having been pulled out, weighed fifteen pounds. It was a pan in height, which is seven inches and two lines by royal measure. The last phalange, that is, the littlest bone of the smallest toe of the foot, was also a pan long.
One of the arm bones, from the elbow to the wrist, was four pans in circumference, which is two feet four inches and eight lines. Two Captains were able to place in the crux of this bone their arms wearing their jackets and “just-in-hands” with large sleeves. M. Quenet, the consul of our nation in Thessalonica, made a report on October 12 for the Authentic Acts of the Chancellery. He was awarded by the Pasha the principal pieces of the skeleton, and he accepted the other pieces, which were seized from private individuals. These he sent to His Majesty.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Note: The original letter of Jérôme de Rhetel was published by Jacques Grou in the Relation veritable de la grandeur prodigieuse du corps d'un geant trouvé dans le royaume de Macedoine en Grece in 1692. I unfortunately do not have access to this text.
Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri, Voyage Round the World 3.2 (1699)
The following refers to the author’s visit to the cathedral at Puebla de los Angeles (modern Puebla, Mexico) in 1698:
This Day D. Nicholas Alvarez, Master of the Ceremonies, shew’d me a Loadstone as big as an ordinary Apple, which holds up twelve Pounds Spanish of Iron. Also a Giant’s Rib as thick as a Mans Arm, and ten Spans long. There is a Tradition that these Giants dwelt on the Mountains above Tlascala.
Translated anonymously in 1704.
This Day D. Nicholas Alvarez, Master of the Ceremonies, shew’d me a Loadstone as big as an ordinary Apple, which holds up twelve Pounds Spanish of Iron. Also a Giant’s Rib as thick as a Mans Arm, and ten Spans long. There is a Tradition that these Giants dwelt on the Mountains above Tlascala.
Translated anonymously in 1704.
Estephan II Boutros El Douaihy, possibly in Tarikh al-ta’ifah al-Maruniyahh (before 1704)
Quoted by Michel M. Alouf, in the second edition of the Histoire de Baalbek (1898)
Traditions state that the fortress of Baalbek on Mt. Libanus is the most ancient building in the world; Cain, the son of Adam, had it built in the year 133 of the creation, in a moment of frenzy. He gave it the name of his son Enoch and peopled it with giants who were visited for their iniquities by the Flood.
Translated by L. Mooyaart (adapted).
Traditions state that the fortress of Baalbek on Mt. Libanus is the most ancient building in the world; Cain, the son of Adam, had it built in the year 133 of the creation, in a moment of frenzy. He gave it the name of his son Enoch and peopled it with giants who were visited for their iniquities by the Flood.
Translated by L. Mooyaart (adapted).
Letter of Gov. Joseph Dudley of Mass. to the Rev. Cotton Mather (July 10, 1706)
Roxbury, 10 July, 1706.
Sir, — I was surprised, a few days since, with a present laid before me from Albany by two honest Dutchmen, inhabitants of that city; which was a certain tooth, accompanied with some other pieces of bone; which being but fragments, without any points whereby they might be determined to what animals they did belong, I could make nothing of them. But the tooth was of the perfect form of the eye-tooth of a man, with four prongs or roots, and six distinct faces or flats on the top, a little worn, and all perfectly smoothed with grinding. I suppose all the surgeons in town have seen it; and I am perfectly of opinion it was a human tooth. I measured it; and, as it stood upright, it was six inches high lacking one-eighth, and round thirteen inches lacking one-eighth; and its weight in the scale was two pounds three ounces, troy weight. One of the same growth, but not of equal weight, was last year presented to my Lord Cornbury; and one of the same figure exactly was shown at Hartford, of near a pound weight more than this.
Upon examination of the two Dutchmen, they tell me the said tooth and bones were taken up under the bank of Hudson’s River, some miles below the city of Albany, about fifty leagues from the sea, about feet below the surface of the earth, in a place where the freshet does not every year rake and waste the bank; and that there is a plain discoloration of the ground, seventy-five feet at least, different from the earth in color and substance, which is judged by everybody that see it to be the ruins and dust of the body that bore those teeth and bones.
I am perfectly of opinion that the tooth will agree only to a human body, for whom the flood only could prepare a funeral; and, without doubt, he waded as long as he could to keep his head above the clouds, but must, at length, be confounded with all other creatures; and the new sediment after the flood gave him the depth we now find.
I remember to have read somewhere a tradition of the Jewish Rabbins, that the issue of those unequal matches between heaven and earth at the beginning were such whose heads reached the clouds, who are, therefore, called Nephelim; and their issue were Geborim, who shrank away to the Raphaim, who were then found not to he invincible, but fell before less men, — the sons of the East in several places besides Canaan. I am not perfectly satisfied of what rank or classis this fellow was; but I am sure not of the last; for Goliah was not half so many feet as this fellow was ells long.
The distance from the sea takes away all pretension of its being a whale or animal of the sea, as well as the figure of the tooth. Nor can it be any remains of the Elephant: the shape of the tooth, and admeasurement of the body in the ground, will not allow that.
There is nothing left but to repair to those antique doctors for his origin, and to allow Dr. Burnet and Dr. Whiston to bury him at the Deluge; and, if he were what he shows, he will be seen again at or after the conflagration, further to be examined.
I am, sir, your humble servant,
J. Dudley.
Sir, — I was surprised, a few days since, with a present laid before me from Albany by two honest Dutchmen, inhabitants of that city; which was a certain tooth, accompanied with some other pieces of bone; which being but fragments, without any points whereby they might be determined to what animals they did belong, I could make nothing of them. But the tooth was of the perfect form of the eye-tooth of a man, with four prongs or roots, and six distinct faces or flats on the top, a little worn, and all perfectly smoothed with grinding. I suppose all the surgeons in town have seen it; and I am perfectly of opinion it was a human tooth. I measured it; and, as it stood upright, it was six inches high lacking one-eighth, and round thirteen inches lacking one-eighth; and its weight in the scale was two pounds three ounces, troy weight. One of the same growth, but not of equal weight, was last year presented to my Lord Cornbury; and one of the same figure exactly was shown at Hartford, of near a pound weight more than this.
Upon examination of the two Dutchmen, they tell me the said tooth and bones were taken up under the bank of Hudson’s River, some miles below the city of Albany, about fifty leagues from the sea, about feet below the surface of the earth, in a place where the freshet does not every year rake and waste the bank; and that there is a plain discoloration of the ground, seventy-five feet at least, different from the earth in color and substance, which is judged by everybody that see it to be the ruins and dust of the body that bore those teeth and bones.
I am perfectly of opinion that the tooth will agree only to a human body, for whom the flood only could prepare a funeral; and, without doubt, he waded as long as he could to keep his head above the clouds, but must, at length, be confounded with all other creatures; and the new sediment after the flood gave him the depth we now find.
I remember to have read somewhere a tradition of the Jewish Rabbins, that the issue of those unequal matches between heaven and earth at the beginning were such whose heads reached the clouds, who are, therefore, called Nephelim; and their issue were Geborim, who shrank away to the Raphaim, who were then found not to he invincible, but fell before less men, — the sons of the East in several places besides Canaan. I am not perfectly satisfied of what rank or classis this fellow was; but I am sure not of the last; for Goliah was not half so many feet as this fellow was ells long.
The distance from the sea takes away all pretension of its being a whale or animal of the sea, as well as the figure of the tooth. Nor can it be any remains of the Elephant: the shape of the tooth, and admeasurement of the body in the ground, will not allow that.
There is nothing left but to repair to those antique doctors for his origin, and to allow Dr. Burnet and Dr. Whiston to bury him at the Deluge; and, if he were what he shows, he will be seen again at or after the conflagration, further to be examined.
I am, sir, your humble servant,
J. Dudley.
Nicolas Henrion, summary of an address presented to the Acadamie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1718)
From the “Eloge de M. Henrion,” Hist. d’l’Academie des Inscriptions & Belles Lettres, vol. 5 (1729)
This gentleman laid before the Academy, in the year 1718, a chronological scale of different sizes of mankind from the creation of the world to the birth of our Saviour. In this table Mr. Henrion assigns to Adam the height of 123 feet 9 inches and Eve 118 feet 9 inches and ¾; from which he established a rule of proportion between masculine and feminine stature in the ratio of 25 to 24. But he presently deprives human nature of that majestic size. According to him, Noah was twenty feet shorter than Adam. Abraham was but twenty-seven or twenty-eight at most. Moses was no more than thirteen. Hercules but ten. Alexander the Great hardly six, and Julius Caesar but five. And though it be long since great men were compared by personal magnitude, yet if Providence had not deigned to suspend the progress of such a prodigious diminution, we should at this time of day have hardly made any figure, at least in this respect, among the present race of insects of any distinction.
Translated in Gabriel François, abbé Coyer's letter to Dr. Maty (1767) (adapted to restore a few missing words)
This gentleman laid before the Academy, in the year 1718, a chronological scale of different sizes of mankind from the creation of the world to the birth of our Saviour. In this table Mr. Henrion assigns to Adam the height of 123 feet 9 inches and Eve 118 feet 9 inches and ¾; from which he established a rule of proportion between masculine and feminine stature in the ratio of 25 to 24. But he presently deprives human nature of that majestic size. According to him, Noah was twenty feet shorter than Adam. Abraham was but twenty-seven or twenty-eight at most. Moses was no more than thirteen. Hercules but ten. Alexander the Great hardly six, and Julius Caesar but five. And though it be long since great men were compared by personal magnitude, yet if Providence had not deigned to suspend the progress of such a prodigious diminution, we should at this time of day have hardly made any figure, at least in this respect, among the present race of insects of any distinction.
Translated in Gabriel François, abbé Coyer's letter to Dr. Maty (1767) (adapted to restore a few missing words)
Frederic Louis Norden, Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie (1755)
A tradition prevails amongst inhabitants of Egypt, that it had formerly been peopled by a race of giants; by whom have been raised the pyramids, spacious palaces, and temples whose remains are the object of our present attention.
Translated anonymously in 1757.
Translated anonymously in 1757.
Claude-Nicolas Le Cat, “Account of Giants,” a memoir read before the Academy of Sciences at Rouen (1764)
The Bible mentions several races of giants, as the Rephaims, the Anakims, the Emims, the Zonzonims, and others. Profane historians have given seven feet of height to Hercules their first hero; and in our days we have seen men eight feet high. The giant who was shown in Rouen in 1735, measured eight feet some inches. The emperor Maximian was of that size; Shenkius and Platerius, physicians of the last century, saw several of that stature; and Goropius saw a girl who was ten feet high.—The body of Orestes, according to the Greeks, was eleven feet and a half; the giant Galbara, brought from Arabia to Rome under Claudius Caesar, was near ten feet; and the bones of Secondilla and Pusio, keepers of the gardens of Sallust, were but six inches shorter. Funnam, a Scotsman, who lived in the time of Eugene II. king of Scotland, measured eleven feet and a half; and Jacob le Maire, in his voyage to the Straits of Magellan, reports, that on the 17th of December 1615, they found at Port Desire several graves covered with stones; and having the curiosity to remove the stones, they discovered human skeletons of ten and eleven feet long. The chevalier Scory, in his voyage to the peak of Teneriffe, says, that they found in one of the sepulchral caverns of that mountain the head of a Guanche which had 80 teeth, and that the body was not less than 15 feet long. The giant Ferragus, slain by Orlando nephew of Charlemagne, was 18 feet high. Rioland, a celebrated anatomist, who wrote in 1614, says, that some years before there was to be seen in the suburbs of St Germain the tomb of the giant Isoret, who was 20 feet high. In Rouen, in 1509, in digging in the ditches near the Dominicans, they found a stone tomb containing a skeleton whose skull held a bushel of corn, and whose shin bone reached up to the girdle of the tallest man there, being about four feet long, and consequently the body must have been 17 or 18 feet high. Upon the tomb was a plate of copper, whereon was engraved, “In this tomb lies the noble and puissant lord the chevalier Ricon de Vallemont, and his bones.” Platerus, a famous physician, declares, that he saw at Lucerne the true human bones of a subject which must have been at least 19 feet high. Valence in Dauphiné boasts of possessing the bones of the giant Bucart, tyrant of the Vivarais, who was slain with an arrow by the count de Cabillon his vassal. The Dominicans bad a part of the shin bone, with the articulation of the knee, and his figure painted in fresco, with an inscription, showing that this giant was 22 feet and a half high, and that his bones were found in 1705, near the banks of the Morderi, a little river at the foot of the mountain of Crussol, upon which (tradition says) the giant dwelt.
January 11, 1613, some masons digging near the ruins of a castle in Dauphiné, in a field, which (by tradition) had long been called the giant’s field, at the depth of 18 feet discovered a brick tomb 30 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high; on which was a gray stone, with the words Theutobochus Rex cut thereon. When the tomb was opened, they found a human skeleton entire, 25 feet and a half long, 10 feet wide across the shoulders, and five feet deep from the breast bone to the back. His teeth were about the size each of an ox’s foot, and his shin bone measured four feet.—Near Mazarino, in Sicily, in 1516, was found a giant 30 feet high; his head was the size of an hogshead, and each of his teeth weighed five ounces. Near Palermo, in the valley of Mazara, in Sicily, a skeleton; of a giant 30 feet long was found, in the year 1548; and another of 33 feet high, in 1550; and many curious persons have preserved several of these gigantic bones.
The Athenians found near their city two famous skeletons, one of 34 and the other of 36 feet high.
At Totu, in Bohemia, in 758, was found a skeleton, the head of which could scarce be encompassed by the arms of two men together, and whose legs, which they still keep in the castle of that city, were 26 feet long. The skull of the giant found in Macedonia, September 1691, held 210 pounds of corn.
The celebrated Sir Hans Sloane, who treated this matter very learnedly, does not doubt these facts; but thinks the bones were those of elephants, whales, or other enormous animals.
Elephants’ bones may be shown for those of giants; but they can never impose on connoisseurs. Whales, which, by their immense bulk, are more proper to be substituted for the largest giants, have neither arms nor legs; and the head of that animal hath not the least resemblance to that of a man. If it be true, therefore, that a great number of the gigantic bones which we have mentioned have been seen by anatomists, and by them have been reputed real human bones, the existence of giants is proved.
Translated and published in Dodley's Annual Register for 1764 and reproduced in various early editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica and its competitors.
January 11, 1613, some masons digging near the ruins of a castle in Dauphiné, in a field, which (by tradition) had long been called the giant’s field, at the depth of 18 feet discovered a brick tomb 30 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high; on which was a gray stone, with the words Theutobochus Rex cut thereon. When the tomb was opened, they found a human skeleton entire, 25 feet and a half long, 10 feet wide across the shoulders, and five feet deep from the breast bone to the back. His teeth were about the size each of an ox’s foot, and his shin bone measured four feet.—Near Mazarino, in Sicily, in 1516, was found a giant 30 feet high; his head was the size of an hogshead, and each of his teeth weighed five ounces. Near Palermo, in the valley of Mazara, in Sicily, a skeleton; of a giant 30 feet long was found, in the year 1548; and another of 33 feet high, in 1550; and many curious persons have preserved several of these gigantic bones.
The Athenians found near their city two famous skeletons, one of 34 and the other of 36 feet high.
At Totu, in Bohemia, in 758, was found a skeleton, the head of which could scarce be encompassed by the arms of two men together, and whose legs, which they still keep in the castle of that city, were 26 feet long. The skull of the giant found in Macedonia, September 1691, held 210 pounds of corn.
The celebrated Sir Hans Sloane, who treated this matter very learnedly, does not doubt these facts; but thinks the bones were those of elephants, whales, or other enormous animals.
Elephants’ bones may be shown for those of giants; but they can never impose on connoisseurs. Whales, which, by their immense bulk, are more proper to be substituted for the largest giants, have neither arms nor legs; and the head of that animal hath not the least resemblance to that of a man. If it be true, therefore, that a great number of the gigantic bones which we have mentioned have been seen by anatomists, and by them have been reputed real human bones, the existence of giants is proved.
Translated and published in Dodley's Annual Register for 1764 and reproduced in various early editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica and its competitors.
Capt. James Allen, "Concerning Some Human Bones of an Extraordinary Size," Medical Repository (1812)
[Prefatory remarks by Joseph Backus.]
Amongst the many who near the time of the end, according to the prophet Daniel, should run to and fro, and by whom knowledge should be increased, Capt. JAMES. ALLEN, of this borough, appears to be one. He has lately returned to his family and friends, after an absence of about two and an half years, traversing different seas, and visiting different countries. At the port of Girgenti, in the island of Sicily, in the Mediterranean, he spent considerable time. Among many things gratifying to the curious to hear, he lately described to me some enormous human skeletons seen by him on that island. The relation was so extraordinary, that I requested of him that his statement might be committed to writing, and that he would make oath to its truth; to which he very politely assented. I was not induced to this by any doubt in my mind of the truth of the facts, as all who are acquainted with Captain Allen, will as readily give credit to his naked certificate of facts within his own knowledge, as to the affidavit of any person whatever. But as I thought the statement worthy of publication, strangers might, by the solemnity of the mode, give more attention to it.
Captain Allen’s relation must furnish the naturalist with much additional evidence of the changes which have taken place in the world since its creation, and give an enlarged scope to his philosophical researches. The scholar will be pleased to learn, that on classic ground there are now indubitable evidences that the fables of the Titans and Cyclops, had for their foundation a race of giants, who while existing, must have been the terror of all mankind of modern size, and by the heathen, naturally, have been believed superior in their nature. The Christian, whose faith is founded on the divine authority of the Bible, must feel peculiar pleasure when new and important evidence of the truth of scripture history is discovered. Mallet, in his Northern Antiquities, and Russic Mythology, drew from the darkness of ancient Scandinavian languages, the Icelandic Edda, containing the religion of Odin. The readers of that little volume, translated by Mallet, readily discover many facts and doctrines (though enveloped in fable) so analogous to some in the bible, that the knowledge of them must have been derived from the same source—a revelation to the Patriarchs at a period anterior to the dispersion of mankind after the general deluge. Sir William Jones, in his Asiatic Researches, has produced from the mythology of the Hindoos, incontrovertible evidence of many of the permanent articles of scripture history, peculiarly subject to deistical cavilling and derision. Barrow, in the account he gives of his travels in the province of the Cape of Good Hope, furnishes satisfactory proofs that the Unicorn was once an inhabitant of Africa. Captain Allen’s statement proves beyond a doubt, that a race of men once inhabited our earth, as large as Goliath or the sons of Anak.
After the above remarks, I make no apology for offering to you for publication the annexed statement.
JOSEPH BACKUS
Amongst the many who near the time of the end, according to the prophet Daniel, should run to and fro, and by whom knowledge should be increased, Capt. JAMES. ALLEN, of this borough, appears to be one. He has lately returned to his family and friends, after an absence of about two and an half years, traversing different seas, and visiting different countries. At the port of Girgenti, in the island of Sicily, in the Mediterranean, he spent considerable time. Among many things gratifying to the curious to hear, he lately described to me some enormous human skeletons seen by him on that island. The relation was so extraordinary, that I requested of him that his statement might be committed to writing, and that he would make oath to its truth; to which he very politely assented. I was not induced to this by any doubt in my mind of the truth of the facts, as all who are acquainted with Captain Allen, will as readily give credit to his naked certificate of facts within his own knowledge, as to the affidavit of any person whatever. But as I thought the statement worthy of publication, strangers might, by the solemnity of the mode, give more attention to it.
Captain Allen’s relation must furnish the naturalist with much additional evidence of the changes which have taken place in the world since its creation, and give an enlarged scope to his philosophical researches. The scholar will be pleased to learn, that on classic ground there are now indubitable evidences that the fables of the Titans and Cyclops, had for their foundation a race of giants, who while existing, must have been the terror of all mankind of modern size, and by the heathen, naturally, have been believed superior in their nature. The Christian, whose faith is founded on the divine authority of the Bible, must feel peculiar pleasure when new and important evidence of the truth of scripture history is discovered. Mallet, in his Northern Antiquities, and Russic Mythology, drew from the darkness of ancient Scandinavian languages, the Icelandic Edda, containing the religion of Odin. The readers of that little volume, translated by Mallet, readily discover many facts and doctrines (though enveloped in fable) so analogous to some in the bible, that the knowledge of them must have been derived from the same source—a revelation to the Patriarchs at a period anterior to the dispersion of mankind after the general deluge. Sir William Jones, in his Asiatic Researches, has produced from the mythology of the Hindoos, incontrovertible evidence of many of the permanent articles of scripture history, peculiarly subject to deistical cavilling and derision. Barrow, in the account he gives of his travels in the province of the Cape of Good Hope, furnishes satisfactory proofs that the Unicorn was once an inhabitant of Africa. Captain Allen’s statement proves beyond a doubt, that a race of men once inhabited our earth, as large as Goliath or the sons of Anak.
After the above remarks, I make no apology for offering to you for publication the annexed statement.
JOSEPH BACKUS
Fanciful illustration of Capt. Allen's encounter with a giant from Joseph Comstock's "Tongue of Time" (1838).
Concerning some HUMAN Bones of an extraordinary size, dug from a great depth, near Girgenti, (the ancient Agrigentum) in Sicily: In a letter from Capt. JAMES ALLEN to JOSEPH BACKUS, Esq. of Bridgeport, dated
BRIDGEPORT, Dec. 21, 1808.
In compliance with your request, and in answer to your different inquiries, be pleased to accept the following statement.
In the spring of the year 1807, I was master of the ship Jupiter, of Philadelphia, on a voyage up the Mediterranean, and in the month of May in that year, lay a considerable time, in the port of Girgenti, in the island of Sicily; situated on the southern side of the island, about twenty leagues south-east of Palermo, and about thirty leagues south-west from Mount Ætna. While lying there, I was informed that some human skeletons, of vast size, had been then lately dug from the ground, about three miles from Girgenti. My curiosity led me to visit the spot from whence they were taken, and to examine and measure the bones. On arriving at the place, I was shown two skeletons, the one much broken, the other entire, except a small piece of one of the leg bones being wanting. The bones of the entire skeleton were promiscuously laid in a box, but measured when laid in a natural position, eleven feet four inches, Italian measure, in length; ten of which inches equal nine English, or very nearly; making the skeleton about ten feet and a half, English. I measured one of the thigh bones, which was twenty-six Italian inches long, and of a proportionate size—its diameter, as near as I could judge, being about four inches, English. The head, including the skull and jaws, were about the dimensions of a common two gallon pail or bucket, and the rest of the bones were in suitable proportions to those described: the whole being a human skeleton, or the entire bones of a man, as above described, of a gigantic size, certainly of a height when living, of not less than ten English feet, and probably several inches higher, by reason of the cartilages between the joints, muscles and skin, on the top of the head and the soles of the feet.
The discovery of the bones was made, as I learned from the inhabitants, about a year before I was there. Some of the neighbouring people having pitched upon the place from whence they were dug (a vale by the side of a mountain) for the purpose of digging sulphur, (an employment common in that island) opened the ground, and by degrees descended to the depth of one hundred and seventy feet, when they came to a marble wall, erected by art, and ornamented with hieroglyphical representations. While attempting to remove a part of it, the wall fell, when within was discovered a hollow place, in which were the bones described, and which appeared to have been enclosed in marble coffins or cases, also adorned with hieroglyphics. The parts of the supposed cases were so broken by the falling of the wall, that their proper shape and design was not ascertained. One of the skeletons was also much broken at the same time; the other was however entire, as before stated. The falling of the wall so deranged the parts of the vault, that it could not be determined whether it was in fact a sepulchre, or some other building; nor was it ascertained whether those were skeletons deposited here by design, or were those of persons killed by the sinking of a city, and buried in its ruins at the time of some awful catastrophe—but that at some period of the world the place where the bones were found had been the site of some opulent city, adorned with the arts, and which had, by some great convulsion of nature, been sunk and overwhelmed by the sea, there can be no doubt: the marble blocks and slabs taken from the wall, part of which had not been removed, all engraved in the most curious manner, with various devices, and which I carefully viewed, having descended into the aperture to its bottom for that purpose, satisfied me of the fact. Besides, the earth through which the workmen had descended was all made earth, appearing to be composed of sea-mud filled with oyster, scallop and other sea shells, of uncommon size. There was, however, no tradition among the inhabitants, as I could learn, of such a city, or of any such great convulsion as must have destroyed it. The people were still labouring at the depth mentioned.
Thus, sir, have I complied with your request, as far as my recollection will at this time enable me to do it. I am willing to make oath to the truth of my statement, when convenient for you to attend for that purpose.
BRIDGEPORT, Dec. 21, 1808.
In compliance with your request, and in answer to your different inquiries, be pleased to accept the following statement.
In the spring of the year 1807, I was master of the ship Jupiter, of Philadelphia, on a voyage up the Mediterranean, and in the month of May in that year, lay a considerable time, in the port of Girgenti, in the island of Sicily; situated on the southern side of the island, about twenty leagues south-east of Palermo, and about thirty leagues south-west from Mount Ætna. While lying there, I was informed that some human skeletons, of vast size, had been then lately dug from the ground, about three miles from Girgenti. My curiosity led me to visit the spot from whence they were taken, and to examine and measure the bones. On arriving at the place, I was shown two skeletons, the one much broken, the other entire, except a small piece of one of the leg bones being wanting. The bones of the entire skeleton were promiscuously laid in a box, but measured when laid in a natural position, eleven feet four inches, Italian measure, in length; ten of which inches equal nine English, or very nearly; making the skeleton about ten feet and a half, English. I measured one of the thigh bones, which was twenty-six Italian inches long, and of a proportionate size—its diameter, as near as I could judge, being about four inches, English. The head, including the skull and jaws, were about the dimensions of a common two gallon pail or bucket, and the rest of the bones were in suitable proportions to those described: the whole being a human skeleton, or the entire bones of a man, as above described, of a gigantic size, certainly of a height when living, of not less than ten English feet, and probably several inches higher, by reason of the cartilages between the joints, muscles and skin, on the top of the head and the soles of the feet.
The discovery of the bones was made, as I learned from the inhabitants, about a year before I was there. Some of the neighbouring people having pitched upon the place from whence they were dug (a vale by the side of a mountain) for the purpose of digging sulphur, (an employment common in that island) opened the ground, and by degrees descended to the depth of one hundred and seventy feet, when they came to a marble wall, erected by art, and ornamented with hieroglyphical representations. While attempting to remove a part of it, the wall fell, when within was discovered a hollow place, in which were the bones described, and which appeared to have been enclosed in marble coffins or cases, also adorned with hieroglyphics. The parts of the supposed cases were so broken by the falling of the wall, that their proper shape and design was not ascertained. One of the skeletons was also much broken at the same time; the other was however entire, as before stated. The falling of the wall so deranged the parts of the vault, that it could not be determined whether it was in fact a sepulchre, or some other building; nor was it ascertained whether those were skeletons deposited here by design, or were those of persons killed by the sinking of a city, and buried in its ruins at the time of some awful catastrophe—but that at some period of the world the place where the bones were found had been the site of some opulent city, adorned with the arts, and which had, by some great convulsion of nature, been sunk and overwhelmed by the sea, there can be no doubt: the marble blocks and slabs taken from the wall, part of which had not been removed, all engraved in the most curious manner, with various devices, and which I carefully viewed, having descended into the aperture to its bottom for that purpose, satisfied me of the fact. Besides, the earth through which the workmen had descended was all made earth, appearing to be composed of sea-mud filled with oyster, scallop and other sea shells, of uncommon size. There was, however, no tradition among the inhabitants, as I could learn, of such a city, or of any such great convulsion as must have destroyed it. The people were still labouring at the depth mentioned.
Thus, sir, have I complied with your request, as far as my recollection will at this time enable me to do it. I am willing to make oath to the truth of my statement, when convenient for you to attend for that purpose.
Spanish journal account of a petrified giant (1834)
The Journal of Madrid, the Athenee, contains a letter describing an enormous petrifaction, which was discovered by the workmen in digging the canal of Sopena. A rock was found about eight feet below the surface of the earth. And at the distance of eighteen feet below this rock, and twenty-six beneath the earth's surface, amidst argillaceous earth, was found a body in a state of petrifaction, the bones of which resembled whitish stone. This body was upwards of eighteen feet long, the head two feet broad, and the breadth of the chest three feet !
A physician and surgeon examined this body, and found it to be a genuine petrified man, or rather giant.
Published in Joseph Comstock, The Tongue of Time (1838).
1834. Antedeluvian Relic.—The journal of Madrid, The Athenee, publishes a very singular letter respecting a discovery made, and particularly relating to natural history. It appears that in digging the Canal of Sopena a rock was found about eight feet under the surface, and beneath this rock at eighteen feet some argillaceous earth. At this spot a human body in a state of petrification was discovered, of which the bones, having the marks of veins and arteries, resembled a whitish piece of stone. This body was eighteen feet long. The head was two feet broad, and the chest three feet in breadth. A physician and surgeon examined the body, and recognized it to be a man. Several of the most respectable persons have visited the spot for the purpose of seeing the curiosity. Several learned persons have supposed that this man of eighteen feet must have lived before the Deluge.— Courant.
Published in Samuel Carment, Glimpses of the Olden Time (1893).
A physician and surgeon examined this body, and found it to be a genuine petrified man, or rather giant.
Published in Joseph Comstock, The Tongue of Time (1838).
1834. Antedeluvian Relic.—The journal of Madrid, The Athenee, publishes a very singular letter respecting a discovery made, and particularly relating to natural history. It appears that in digging the Canal of Sopena a rock was found about eight feet under the surface, and beneath this rock at eighteen feet some argillaceous earth. At this spot a human body in a state of petrification was discovered, of which the bones, having the marks of veins and arteries, resembled a whitish piece of stone. This body was eighteen feet long. The head was two feet broad, and the chest three feet in breadth. A physician and surgeon examined the body, and recognized it to be a man. Several of the most respectable persons have visited the spot for the purpose of seeing the curiosity. Several learned persons have supposed that this man of eighteen feet must have lived before the Deluge.— Courant.
Published in Samuel Carment, Glimpses of the Olden Time (1893).
Abbe Pègues, Histoire et phénomènes du volcan et des îles volcaniques de Santorin, Chapter 7 (1842)
Now here is something that has to excite curiosity: the discovery of an enormous skeleton found there [on Thera, modern Santorini] three or four years ago by a winemaker, on the side of Apano Meria in a field that he was clearing of stones. According to the report that was given to me in 1835 by an inhabitant of the city, Nicolaki son of Maure, it had to be eight to nine feet in length. The head was of enormous size, but in proportion to the rest of the bones. Time did not permit me to question the author of the discovery to obtain accurate information and make sure of the truth of a fact that deserves more fame, for the peasant was ignorant and indifferent to the object, and having paid a moment of physical admiration, immediately covered up the extraordinary skeleton with a few feet of earth and continued the clearing he had started.
This discovery seems hard to believe, but it is supported by analogous facts that make it highly credible. The first is reported in the relations of Father Richard, printed in 1656. Speaking of large stones that were used in the construction of an ancient building of Thera, he adds: “They [the people] had strong arms and hands to handle the prodigious weight, too, as men were at that time more powerful than today. We sent half of the lower jaw of a man of that time, which was found with one arm, to Candia [in Savoy, modern Chambéry, France], and this single bone weighed six pounds. I will let the geometricians judge their extreme proportions from the hand and arm of the giant.” From all that was said, it is true, he would have us believe that at the time mentioned by the author all people in general were of gigantic size and strength; but taking only the substance of the facts, it would still be true that there were giants on the island; and he would not be astonished at the discovery of the skeleton that took place there a few years ago, unless the people of Santorini in Father Richard’s time had taken the jaw and the thigh of a horse for the parts of a former Theran. But sending the arm to Candia, upon the request, no doubt, of some learned man, seems to prove sufficiently that it is not a fable; and it is not to be believed that the entire population who saw that marvel confused the parts of a large animal with those of a man.
The second fact is unmistakable, and only goes back to 1811: the discovery of another skeleton, made in Saint Stephen [Mesa Vuono?], by Guillaume Alby, vice-consul of France in Santorini and a member of the Legion of Honor. He found it by doing searches on the mountain, by order of Mr. Andreossy, then ambassador of France in Constantinople, and took only the head, which he still has today buried in one of his terraces or passages which lead from his house to the backyard. Without attaching great interest to it, he carried off this main part of the skeleton, because he was struck by its gigantic proportions, and left the rest, covering it in earth in the same place where it was found. It was from him that I had this fact, which he told me a few days ago. Mr. Alby is full of life. He is currently on a leisure trip to Paris, where he may be consulted.
But there is a more important historical fact, which comes to us because of the three just mentioned and which must increase and fully confirm the belief in the dispersion of the giants in the islands, specifically about the time when Cadmus brought the first colony to Calliste (Thera). There the Canaanites, to which they belonged, were driven from their country by the Hebrews under the leadership of Joshua, and came to settle there in that place. With this assumption, it is not surprising that among the multitude of the Canaanites and scattered giants fleeing before the People of God, some had chosen by preference Calliste for asylum, since the Phoenicians, who had occupied it about fifty years before, were of one people with them and from the same countries; and it is conceivable that, among those who took refuge there, there should consequently have therefore been giants, as that race was mixed among the inhabitants of Phoenicia.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
This discovery seems hard to believe, but it is supported by analogous facts that make it highly credible. The first is reported in the relations of Father Richard, printed in 1656. Speaking of large stones that were used in the construction of an ancient building of Thera, he adds: “They [the people] had strong arms and hands to handle the prodigious weight, too, as men were at that time more powerful than today. We sent half of the lower jaw of a man of that time, which was found with one arm, to Candia [in Savoy, modern Chambéry, France], and this single bone weighed six pounds. I will let the geometricians judge their extreme proportions from the hand and arm of the giant.” From all that was said, it is true, he would have us believe that at the time mentioned by the author all people in general were of gigantic size and strength; but taking only the substance of the facts, it would still be true that there were giants on the island; and he would not be astonished at the discovery of the skeleton that took place there a few years ago, unless the people of Santorini in Father Richard’s time had taken the jaw and the thigh of a horse for the parts of a former Theran. But sending the arm to Candia, upon the request, no doubt, of some learned man, seems to prove sufficiently that it is not a fable; and it is not to be believed that the entire population who saw that marvel confused the parts of a large animal with those of a man.
The second fact is unmistakable, and only goes back to 1811: the discovery of another skeleton, made in Saint Stephen [Mesa Vuono?], by Guillaume Alby, vice-consul of France in Santorini and a member of the Legion of Honor. He found it by doing searches on the mountain, by order of Mr. Andreossy, then ambassador of France in Constantinople, and took only the head, which he still has today buried in one of his terraces or passages which lead from his house to the backyard. Without attaching great interest to it, he carried off this main part of the skeleton, because he was struck by its gigantic proportions, and left the rest, covering it in earth in the same place where it was found. It was from him that I had this fact, which he told me a few days ago. Mr. Alby is full of life. He is currently on a leisure trip to Paris, where he may be consulted.
But there is a more important historical fact, which comes to us because of the three just mentioned and which must increase and fully confirm the belief in the dispersion of the giants in the islands, specifically about the time when Cadmus brought the first colony to Calliste (Thera). There the Canaanites, to which they belonged, were driven from their country by the Hebrews under the leadership of Joshua, and came to settle there in that place. With this assumption, it is not surprising that among the multitude of the Canaanites and scattered giants fleeing before the People of God, some had chosen by preference Calliste for asylum, since the Phoenicians, who had occupied it about fifty years before, were of one people with them and from the same countries; and it is conceivable that, among those who took refuge there, there should consequently have therefore been giants, as that race was mixed among the inhabitants of Phoenicia.
Translated by Jason Colavito.
Abraham Lincoln, unpublished lecture notes on Niagara Falls (undated, c. 1848-1850)
The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now.
Published in Daniel Kilham Dodge, Lincoln Miscellany (1900).
Published in Daniel Kilham Dodge, Lincoln Miscellany (1900).
Nelson Lee, Three Years Among the Camanches (1859), chapter 14
Note: Three Years Among the Camanches (sic) is believed to be a likely hoax as no evidence of its author exists.
Finally we descended into a ravine, walled on either side by rugged cliffs which led us a day’s ride to the southwest, when we emerged into a valley about four miles wide and thirty long. It was surrounded on all sides by very high mountains, exceedingly bleak and barren. There was not a tree, or bush, or even a blade of grass to be discovered over the entire surface of the valley. It was covered, to the average depth of fifteen feet, as near as I could judge, with broken pumice stone, a substance precisely similar to the lava of Vesuvius. That it was the result of volcanic eruptions there was no possible doubt, inasmuch as numerous tracts down which it had flowed from the mountaintops were distinctly visible.
The Rolling Thunder, in order to convince me of the correctness of a belief, universal throughout the Comanche nation, conducted me to the western side of this strange valley, where I saw, with infinite astonishment and surprise, the dilapidated ruins of a large town. In the midst of the falling walls of a great number of buildings, which, in some remote age, beyond doubt, had lined spacious streets, was what appeared to have been a church or cathedral.
Its walls of cut stone, two feet thick, and in some places fifteen feet high, included a space measuring two hundred feet in length, and, perhaps, one hundred in width. The inner surface of the walls in many places was adorned with elaborate carved work, evidently the labor of a master hand, and at the eastern end was a massive stone platform which seemed to have been used as a stage or pulpit. In my surprise at beholding so unexpectedly these evidences of civilization in that wild region, I turned to the Rolling Thunder and asked if he could explain it.
This is the legend of the Comanches, as he related it: Innumerable moons ago, a race of white men, ten feet high, and far more rich and powerful than any white people now living, here inhabited a large range of country, extending from the rising to the setting sun. Their fortifications crowned the summits of the mountains, protecting their populous cities situated in the intervening valleys. They excelled every other nation which was flourished, either before or since, in all manner of cunning handicraft — were brave and warlike — ruling over the land they had wrested from its ancient possessors with a high and haughty hand. Compared with them the palefaces of the present day were pygmies, in both art and arms. They drove the Indians from their homes, putting them to the sword, and occupying the valleys in which their fathers had dwelt before them since the world began. At length, in the height of their power and glory, when they remembered justice and mercy no more and became proud and lifted up, the Great Spirit descended from above, sweeping them with fire and deluge from the face of the earth. The mounds we had seen on the tablelands were the remnants of their fortresses, and the crumbling ruins that surrounded us all that remained of a mighty city.
In like manner, continued the Rolling Thunder, the day will surely come when the present white race, which is driving the Indians before it, and despoiling them of their inheritance, and which, in the confidence of its strength, has become arrogant and boastful and forgotten God, will be swept from existence. For the Great Spirit is just—and as certainly as the rivers flow downward towards the salt sea, or the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, so certainly will He yet restore the land of their fathers to the red man, when the days of his affliction are passed.
It would, indeed, be difficult to adopt any other hypothesis than the one entertained by the chief. The evidence before me was too clear and palpable to be controverted, that at some period, more or less remote, this valley had been inhabited by a people skilled in architecture and evidently possessing, in a high degree, a knowledge of mechanism and the arts. Whether the Rolling Thunder’s account of their destruction is correct, or his belief that their successors will eventually be disposed of in the same summary manner is orthodox, will admit of argument; nevertheless, there is no doubt that, in common with all the tribes of the Camanches, he entertains this belief, in genuine sincerity. It is this unwavering faith in the future ascendancy of the red man, and the final restoration to him of all the possessions he has lost, which prompts him to perpetual resistance, and which so often led the Rolling Thunder to exclaim, after I had described some marvelous invention—“Wonderful, wonderful are the works of the white man, but the Great Spirit will destroy them all.”
Finally we descended into a ravine, walled on either side by rugged cliffs which led us a day’s ride to the southwest, when we emerged into a valley about four miles wide and thirty long. It was surrounded on all sides by very high mountains, exceedingly bleak and barren. There was not a tree, or bush, or even a blade of grass to be discovered over the entire surface of the valley. It was covered, to the average depth of fifteen feet, as near as I could judge, with broken pumice stone, a substance precisely similar to the lava of Vesuvius. That it was the result of volcanic eruptions there was no possible doubt, inasmuch as numerous tracts down which it had flowed from the mountaintops were distinctly visible.
The Rolling Thunder, in order to convince me of the correctness of a belief, universal throughout the Comanche nation, conducted me to the western side of this strange valley, where I saw, with infinite astonishment and surprise, the dilapidated ruins of a large town. In the midst of the falling walls of a great number of buildings, which, in some remote age, beyond doubt, had lined spacious streets, was what appeared to have been a church or cathedral.
Its walls of cut stone, two feet thick, and in some places fifteen feet high, included a space measuring two hundred feet in length, and, perhaps, one hundred in width. The inner surface of the walls in many places was adorned with elaborate carved work, evidently the labor of a master hand, and at the eastern end was a massive stone platform which seemed to have been used as a stage or pulpit. In my surprise at beholding so unexpectedly these evidences of civilization in that wild region, I turned to the Rolling Thunder and asked if he could explain it.
This is the legend of the Comanches, as he related it: Innumerable moons ago, a race of white men, ten feet high, and far more rich and powerful than any white people now living, here inhabited a large range of country, extending from the rising to the setting sun. Their fortifications crowned the summits of the mountains, protecting their populous cities situated in the intervening valleys. They excelled every other nation which was flourished, either before or since, in all manner of cunning handicraft — were brave and warlike — ruling over the land they had wrested from its ancient possessors with a high and haughty hand. Compared with them the palefaces of the present day were pygmies, in both art and arms. They drove the Indians from their homes, putting them to the sword, and occupying the valleys in which their fathers had dwelt before them since the world began. At length, in the height of their power and glory, when they remembered justice and mercy no more and became proud and lifted up, the Great Spirit descended from above, sweeping them with fire and deluge from the face of the earth. The mounds we had seen on the tablelands were the remnants of their fortresses, and the crumbling ruins that surrounded us all that remained of a mighty city.
In like manner, continued the Rolling Thunder, the day will surely come when the present white race, which is driving the Indians before it, and despoiling them of their inheritance, and which, in the confidence of its strength, has become arrogant and boastful and forgotten God, will be swept from existence. For the Great Spirit is just—and as certainly as the rivers flow downward towards the salt sea, or the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, so certainly will He yet restore the land of their fathers to the red man, when the days of his affliction are passed.
It would, indeed, be difficult to adopt any other hypothesis than the one entertained by the chief. The evidence before me was too clear and palpable to be controverted, that at some period, more or less remote, this valley had been inhabited by a people skilled in architecture and evidently possessing, in a high degree, a knowledge of mechanism and the arts. Whether the Rolling Thunder’s account of their destruction is correct, or his belief that their successors will eventually be disposed of in the same summary manner is orthodox, will admit of argument; nevertheless, there is no doubt that, in common with all the tribes of the Camanches, he entertains this belief, in genuine sincerity. It is this unwavering faith in the future ascendancy of the red man, and the final restoration to him of all the possessions he has lost, which prompts him to perpetual resistance, and which so often led the Rolling Thunder to exclaim, after I had described some marvelous invention—“Wonderful, wonderful are the works of the white man, but the Great Spirit will destroy them all.”
Henry D’Oyley Torrens, Travels in Ladâk, Tartary, and Kashmir (1862), Chapter V
The legend [from the Rohtang Pass of the Himalayas] runs, that when the gods fled before the might of the Rakis (the Titans of Hindoo mythology), they took refuge for a time in the snows of the Himalayas, and the serpents were placed to guard all the roads to their abode. This was one of the principal outposts of the serpent army, and, from mere force of habit, I suppose, their descendants continue to keep up the routine of guard-mounting, &c.: but they must be sadly degenerate, so trifling a worm as that would have been a ridiculous barrier against triumphant and gigantic Rakis; doubtless they were boa-constrictors in those good old days when the Olympian court was held on the peaks of Kailas; they kept better watch, too, then, it is to be hoped, when ministering spirits went the rounds, for I will swear before any court-martial that the sentry was asleep in his box when we came up, and that when he was aroused from his criminal slumbers, he did not turn out the guard, present fangs, or ask for the counter-sign; fancy the lamentations of a veteran serpent, of a vieille moustache of the old snake army, could he rise from the dead, over their shortcomings— what a yarn he would spin, commencing, “By Vishnu, sir,” and ending confidentially in your ear, with an apoplectic sigh deep-drawn from the bottom of his scaly waistcoat, “it’s my belief, sir the service has gone to the devil!”
The legend goes on to say that the gods, invigorated, we will presume, by the bracing Alpine air, or driven to desperation by the tristesse of their lonely residence, again took the field, utterly routed the Rakis, and slew them to a giant. The fossils so plentifully strewed over the Sewalik, or lowest ranges of the Himalayas, are the bones of the slain Rakis!!!
This was [our guide] Bujjoo’s story.
The legend goes on to say that the gods, invigorated, we will presume, by the bracing Alpine air, or driven to desperation by the tristesse of their lonely residence, again took the field, utterly routed the Rakis, and slew them to a giant. The fossils so plentifully strewed over the Sewalik, or lowest ranges of the Himalayas, are the bones of the slain Rakis!!!
This was [our guide] Bujjoo’s story.
Lucy Thompson (Che-na-wah Weitch-ah-wah), To the American Indian (1916), Chapter 4
When The Indians first made their appearance on the Klamath river it was already inhabited by a white race of people known among us as the Wa-gas. These white people were found to inhabit the whole continent, and were a highly moral and civilized race. They heartily welcomed the Indians to their country and taught us all of their arts and sciences. The Indians recognized the rights of these ancient people as the first possessors of the soil and no difficulties ever arose between the two people. Their hospitality was exceedingly generous in the welfare of our people and all prospered together in peace and happiness, in their pursuit of human existence (sic). After a time there where inter-marriages between the two races, but these were never promiscuous. For a vast period of time the two races dwelt together in peace and honored homes, wars and quarrels were unknown in this golden age of happiness. No depredations were ever committed upon the property of their people, as the white people ruled with beacon light of kindness, and our people still worship the hallowed places where once they trod. Their morals were far superior to the white people of today, their ideals were high and inspired our people with greatness. After we had lived with these ancient people so long, they suddenly called their hosts together and mysteriously disappeared for a distant land, we know not where. We have no memory of their reason or cause why they abandoned their ancient homes where they had dwelt for untold centuries. Wars did not drive them forth, for we loved them more than brothers, and difficulties were unknown between the two people. On leaving they went toward the North from whence we came, and disappeared from our land beyond the northern seas. It was a sad farewell when they departed from this land, for our people mourned their loss, as no more have we found such friends as they, so true and loyal. In their farewell journey across this land they left landmarks of stone monuments, on the tops of high mountains and places commanding a view of the surrounding country. These land-marks we have kept in repair, down through the ages in loving remembrance. I have seen many of these land-marks myself (and often repaired them) that they left as a symbol of the mystic ages and the grandeur of a mighty nation that passed in a single season. Oh, how little we know of the depths of the ages gone, how wide, how profound and deep is the knowledge we seek; a monument of stone, a stone bowl, a broken symbol, a hallowed unknown spot, a lodge of ruins, all this makes a golden page glittering with diamonds that trills the emotions with mysterious longings for truth and light in the depths unknown.
When the Wag-as left this land they assured my people that they would return to them at some future time. Perchance thousands of years have elapsed since then, and they have not returned, we have waited in vain for it seems that our cherished hopes are fading. However, some of our people are still looking for the return of the white man. The traditions handed down leads us to believe that the Wa-gas returned to the land of their birth, in the far north, the valley of Cheek-cheek-alth, as their traditions were given to us that their origin was in this same land of Cheek-cheek-alth, as they came down from the North when they came to this land. When the Wa-gas first arrived on this continent they handed down the traditions to us that it was inhabited by a giant race of people when they first came. These giants were represented by the Wa-gas as being very swarthy in complexion, and they used implements so large that no ordinary man could lift them. It was an age when large animals roamed the earth, and it seems the birds and fowls were all very large in size. It appeared to be the first age, and was the age of the giants. The recollections transmitted by the Wa-gas were that these giants were very cruel and wicked. It was said that God became displeased with them and destroyed them and they all perished from the earth. It was also said that God appeared to the High Priest of the Wa-gas and told them that he was going to destroy the giant race and that the Wa-gas themselves would survive upon the earth as a new people. Smaller birds and animals would appear upon the earth for the use of man, thus the age of giants perished, but the Wa-gas do not hand down any tradition of how they perished from the earth, as my people have no recollections of ever seeing giants. My mother says that our people in ancient times have seen many relics belonging to these prehistoric giants, such as huge stone bowls, stone slabs and other implements so great that our people could not move them. During the ages of rains and wearing away of the earth, these implements have been buried so deep and have sunk into the earth, is the reason we cannot find them today. The Indian name for the giant race is Pah-pel-ene, which means people that have all died and passed away.
When the Wa-gas returned to Cheek-cheek-alth it is supposed they found a ladder in this beautiful valley which extends from earth to Heaven, and climbed it to Werse-on-now, (Heaven) where they dwell with God. All the half castes with the exception of a few went away with the Wa-gas, and nearly all those that were three quarters Indian remained with our people. This is said to be the reason why some of our people are very fair. Some of the Indians are still looking for their return to the earth, when they come back it is believed that peace and happiness will reign supreme again over this great land and all evil will be cast out. When the present race of the white people made their first appearance upon the American continent, we believed it was the Wa-gas returning and a hearty welcome was extended to them and there was great rejoicing among our tribes. But soon the sad mistake was discovered to our sorrow, when the men began to debauch our women, give whiskey to our men and claim our land that our fore-fathers had inhabited for so many thousands of years, yet not a single family has ever been driven from their house on the Klamath river up to this day. We no longer termed them as Wa-gas, but as Ken-e-yahs, which means foreigners, who had no right to the land and could never appreciate our kindness, for they were a very different people from the Wa-gas. They had corrupt morals that brought dissolution upon our people and wrought the horrors of untold havoc.
When the Wag-as left this land they assured my people that they would return to them at some future time. Perchance thousands of years have elapsed since then, and they have not returned, we have waited in vain for it seems that our cherished hopes are fading. However, some of our people are still looking for the return of the white man. The traditions handed down leads us to believe that the Wa-gas returned to the land of their birth, in the far north, the valley of Cheek-cheek-alth, as their traditions were given to us that their origin was in this same land of Cheek-cheek-alth, as they came down from the North when they came to this land. When the Wa-gas first arrived on this continent they handed down the traditions to us that it was inhabited by a giant race of people when they first came. These giants were represented by the Wa-gas as being very swarthy in complexion, and they used implements so large that no ordinary man could lift them. It was an age when large animals roamed the earth, and it seems the birds and fowls were all very large in size. It appeared to be the first age, and was the age of the giants. The recollections transmitted by the Wa-gas were that these giants were very cruel and wicked. It was said that God became displeased with them and destroyed them and they all perished from the earth. It was also said that God appeared to the High Priest of the Wa-gas and told them that he was going to destroy the giant race and that the Wa-gas themselves would survive upon the earth as a new people. Smaller birds and animals would appear upon the earth for the use of man, thus the age of giants perished, but the Wa-gas do not hand down any tradition of how they perished from the earth, as my people have no recollections of ever seeing giants. My mother says that our people in ancient times have seen many relics belonging to these prehistoric giants, such as huge stone bowls, stone slabs and other implements so great that our people could not move them. During the ages of rains and wearing away of the earth, these implements have been buried so deep and have sunk into the earth, is the reason we cannot find them today. The Indian name for the giant race is Pah-pel-ene, which means people that have all died and passed away.
When the Wa-gas returned to Cheek-cheek-alth it is supposed they found a ladder in this beautiful valley which extends from earth to Heaven, and climbed it to Werse-on-now, (Heaven) where they dwell with God. All the half castes with the exception of a few went away with the Wa-gas, and nearly all those that were three quarters Indian remained with our people. This is said to be the reason why some of our people are very fair. Some of the Indians are still looking for their return to the earth, when they come back it is believed that peace and happiness will reign supreme again over this great land and all evil will be cast out. When the present race of the white people made their first appearance upon the American continent, we believed it was the Wa-gas returning and a hearty welcome was extended to them and there was great rejoicing among our tribes. But soon the sad mistake was discovered to our sorrow, when the men began to debauch our women, give whiskey to our men and claim our land that our fore-fathers had inhabited for so many thousands of years, yet not a single family has ever been driven from their house on the Klamath river up to this day. We no longer termed them as Wa-gas, but as Ken-e-yahs, which means foreigners, who had no right to the land and could never appreciate our kindness, for they were a very different people from the Wa-gas. They had corrupt morals that brought dissolution upon our people and wrought the horrors of untold havoc.
