Chapter 18

In Norway itself the legend runs thus: The Hornelen Mountains in Bremanger were once connected with Maröe, but are now divided from it by a sound. St. Olaf sailed up to them, and commanded the cliffs to part and let him pass through. They did so, but instantly a giantess leapt out of the mountain and cried:

sig (see), du mand med det hvide skä (white beard),

hvi splitter du saa min klipperväg?

Olaf:

stat (stand) trold nu evig der i steen,

saa gjör du ei nogen mand (not any man) meer meen.

His word came to pass, and the stone figure stands yet on the cliff (Faye 124). Olaf's red beard (like those of our hero-kings Otto and Friedrich) remind us of Thôrr the foe of giants (p. 177); 'pipuga skägg' is apparently the same as the pipskägg, wedgelike or peaked beard, quoted by Ihre; but the Norwegian rhyme has white beard (the barbe fleurie of Charlemagne). Such divergences, and the changes rung on 'cellar wall, bathroom wall, cliff wall,' vouch for the popular character of the tradition (see Suppl.). It will surprise no one, if I produce a still older type of the whole story from the Edda itself. When Brynhildr in her decorated car was faring the 'hel-veg,' she went past the dwelling of a gýgr; the giantess accosts her with the words (Sæm. 228ª):

skaltu î gögnom gânga eigi

griôti studda garða mîna!

(shalt not go through my stone-built house). This brings on a dialogue, which is closed by Brynhildr with the exclamation: 'seykstu gýgjarkyn!' (conf. p. 497n.). The giantess's house is of stones skilfully put together, and the later rhyme speak of cellar and bathroom: she herself is quite the housewife with distaff and spindle. The sacred rights of domesticity are infringed, when strangers burst their way through. There are other instances in which the giantess, like the elfin, is described with spindle and distaff: 'tolv troldqvinder (12 trold-women) de stode for hannem med rok og ten' (Danske viser 1, 94). (60)

Close to the Romsdalshorn in Norway is a mountain called Troldtinder, whose jutting crags are due to giants whom Olaf converted into stones, because they tried to prevent his teaching christianity in Romsdal. (61)

It would appear, from Sæm. 145b, that giants, like dwarfs, have reason to dread the daylight, and if surprised by the break of day, they turn into stone: 'dagr er nû,' cries Atli to Hrîmgerðr, 'hafnar mark þyckir hlœgeligt vera, þars þu î steins lîki stendr.'

Grotesque humanlike shapes assumed by stalactite, flint and flakestone on the small scale, and by basalt and granite rocks on the great, have largely engendered and fed these fancies about petrified giants. Then the myth about stone-circles accounts for their form by dances of giants; (62) many rocks have stories attached to them of wedding-folk and dancing guests being turned into stone (see Suppl.). The old and truly popular terminology of mountains everywhere uses the names of different parts of the body; to mountains are given a head, brow, neck, back, shoulder, knee, foot, etc. (RA. 541).

And here we come across numerous approximations and overlappings between the giant-legend and those of dwarfs, schrats and watersprites, as the comprehensive name troll in Scandinavian tradition would of itself indicate. Dwarfs of the mountains are, like giants, liable to transformation into stone, as indeed they have sprung out of stone (p. 532-3). Rosmer havmand (merman) springs of flies, as the graphic phrase is, into stone. (63)

Then on the other side, the notion of the giant gets a good deal mixed up with that of the hero, usually his opposite. Strong Jack in our nursery-tales assumes quite the character of a giant; and even Siegfried, pure hero as he is in the Mid. Age poems, yet partakes of giant nature when acting as a smith, like Wielant, who is of giant extraction. Moreover, both Siegfried slightly, and Strong Jack more distinctly, acquire a tinge of that Eulenspiegel or Rübezahl humour (p. 486) which is so amusing in the Finnish stories of Kalewa, Hisi, and especially Soini (conf. Kalewala, rune 19). This Soini or Kullervo bears the nickname of Kalki (schalk, rogue); when an infant three days old, he tore up his baby-linen; sold to a Carelian smith, and set to mind the baby, he dug its eyes out, killed it, and burnt the cradle. Then, when his master ordered him to fence the fields in, he took whole fir-trees and pines, and wattled them with snakes; after that, he had to pasture the flock, but the goodwife having baked a stone in his break, Soini was in such a rage that he called bears and wolves to aid him, who tore the woman's legs and worried the flock. The Esthonians also tell of a giant's son (Kallewepoeg), who furrowed up grassy lands with a wooden plough, and not a blade has grown on them since (see Suppl.). This trickiness of the Finnish giants is a contrast to the rough but honest ways of the German and Scandinavian.

Above all, there is no clear line to be drawn between giants and the wild hairy woodsprites dealt with in pp. 478-486. In the woods of the Bingenheim Mark are seen the stone seats of the wild folk (conf. p. 432) who once lived there, and the print of their hands on the stones (Deut. sag. no. 166). In the vale of Gastein, says Muchar, p. 137, wild men have lived within the memory of man, but the breed has died out since; one of them declared he had seen the forest of Sallesen near Mt. Stubnerkogel get 'mair' (die out and revive again) nine times: he could mind when the Bocksteinkogl was no bigger than a kranawetvogl (crossbill?), or the mighty Schareck than a twopenny roll. Thier strength was gigantic: to hurl a ploughshare the whole breadth of the valley was an easy throw for them. One of these 'men' leant his staff against the head farmer's house, and the whole house shook. Their dwelling was an inaccessible cavern on the left bank of the Ache, at the entrance to the Klamm; outside the cave stood some appletrees, and with the apples they would pelt the passers-by in fun; remains of their household stuff are still to be seen. To the inhabitants of the valley they were rather friendly than otherwise, and often put a quantity of butter and milk before their house-doors. This last feature is more of a piece with the habits of dwarfs and elves than of giants.

Just as the elves found the spread of agriculture and the clearing of their forests an abomination, which compelled them to move out; so the giants regard the woods as their own property, in which they are by no means disposed to let men do as they please. A peasant's son had no sooner began to cut down a bushy pinetree, than a great stout trold made his appearance with the threat: 'dare to cut in my wood, and I'll strike thee dead' (Asbiörnsen's Möe, no. 6); the Danish folk-song of Eline af Villenskov is founded on this, D.V. 1, 175. And no less do giants (like dwarfs, p. 459) hate the ringing of bells, as in the Swedish tale of the old giant in the mountain (Afzelius 3, 88); therefore they sling rocks at the belfries. Gargantua also carries off bells from churches.

In many of the tales that have come before us, giant and devil are convertible terms, especially where the former has laid aside his clumsiness. The same with a number of other resemblances between the two. The devil is described as many-headed like the giant, also, it is true, like the dragon and the hellhound. Wherever the devil's hand clutches or his foot treads, indelible traces imprint themselves even on the hardest stone. The titans chased from Olympus resemble the angels thrust out of heaven and changed into devils. The abode of the giants, like that of heathens and devils in general (p. 34), is supposed to be in the north: when Freyr looks from heaven toward Iötunheim (Sæm. 81) and spies the fair giantess, this is expressed in Snorri 39 by 'Freyr leit î norðrætt.' In the Danish folk-song of the stolen hammer, Thôrr appears as Tord (thunder) af Hafsgaard (seaburgh), while the giant from whom Loke is to get the hammer back dwells in Nordenfjeld; the Swedish folk-song says more vaguely 'trolltrams gård.' (64)

But what runs into gianthood altogether is the nature of the man-eating huorco or ogre (p. 486). Like him the stone-hurling cyclops in the Odyssey hanker after human flesh; and again a Tartar giant Depêghöz (eye on top of head) (65) stands midway between Polyphemus, who combs with a harrow and shaves with a scythe (Ov. Metam. 13, 764), and Gargantua. As an infant he sucks all the nurses dry, that offer him the breast; when grown up, the Oghuzes have to supply him daily with 2 men and 500 sheep. Bissat, the hero, burns out his eye with a red-hot knife; the blinded giant sits outside the door, and feels with his hands each goat as it passes out. An arrow aimed at his breast would not penetrate, he cried 'what's this fly here teazing me?' The Laplanders tell of a giant Stalo, who was one-eyed, and went about in a garment of iron. He was feared as a man-eater, and received the by-name of yityatya (Nilsson 4, 32). The Indian Mahâbhârata also represents Hidimbas the râkshasa (giant) (66) as a man-eater, misshapen and red-bearded: man's flesh he smells from afar, (67) and orders Hîdimba his sister to fetch it him; but she, like the monster's wife or daughter in the nursery-tales, pities and befriends the slumbering hero (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

60. The Celtic fay carries huge stones on her spindle, and spins on as she walks, Keightley 2, 286. Conf. supra, p. 413. Back

61. Faye 124, who follows Schöning's Reise 2, 128. Sanct Olafs saga på svenske rim, ed. Hadorph. p. 37: 'ell troll, som draap X män, han giordit i stena, och stander än; flere troll han och bortdref, sidan folckit i frijd blef.' Certain round pot-shaped holes found in the mountains, the Norwegian people believe to be the work of giants. They call them jättegryter, troldgryter, yet also S. Oles gryter (Hallager 53b). Back

62. Stonehenge, AS. Stânhenge (-hanging), near Salisbury, in Welsh Choirgaur, Lat. chorea gigantum; acc. to Giraldus Cambr. cap. 18, a cairn brought by giants from Africa to Spain (Palgrave's Hist. of AS., p. 50); conf. Diefenbach's Celtica ii. 101. In Trist. 5887, Gurmun is said to be 'born of Africa.' Back

63. Danske viser 1, 223: 'han sprang saa vildt i bjerget om, og blev til flintesten sorte.' 1, 228: 'han blev til en kampesteen graa.' 1, 233: 'saa flöj han bort i röden flint, og blev saa borte med alle.' 1, 185 of a cruel stepmother: 'hun sprang bort i flintesteen.' But H. Sachs too has, iii. 3, 31ª. 426, 'vor zorn zu einem stein springen;' ib. 53b, 'vor sorg zu eim stein springen;' iv. 3, 97d, 'vor leid wol zu eim stein möcht springen.' Overpowering emotions make the life stand still, and curdle it into cold stone. Conf. Chap. XXXII. on the heroes entrapped in mountains, and Suppl. Back

64. To wish a man 'norden till fjälls' (Arvidsson 2, 163) is to wish him in a disagreeable quarter (Germ. 'in pepperland,' at Jericho). Back

65. Diez: The newly discovered Oghuzian cyclop compared with the Homeric. Halle & Berlin 1815. Back

66. Tevetat's second birth (Reinhart cclxxxi.) is a râkshasî, giantess, not a beast. Back

67. 'Mightily works man's smell, and amazingly quickens my nostrils,' Arjuna's Journey, by Bopp, p. 18. The same in our fairy-tales (supra, p. 486). Epithets of these Indian dæmons indicate that they walk about by night (Bopp's gloss. 91. 97). Back