THE GIANTS.
As we have already seen, the Northern races imagined that the giants
were the first creatures who came to life among the icebergs filling
the vast abyss of Ginnunga-gap. These giants were from the very
beginning the opponents and rivals of the gods, and as the latter
were the personifications of all that is good and lovely, the former
naturally served to denote all that was ugly and evil.
[Sidenote: Jötun-heim.]
Slain by the gods, Ymir, the first giant, fell lifeless on the ice,
drowning all his progeny in his blood. One couple only, Bergelmir
and his wife, effected their escape to the confines of the world,
Jötun-heim, where they took up their abode and became the parents of
all the giant race. In the North the giants were called by various
names, each having a particular meaning. Jötun, for instance, meant
“the great eater,” for the giants were noted for their enormous
appetites as well as for their uncommon size. As they were fond of
drinking as well as of eating, they were also called Thurses, a word
which some writers claim had the same meaning as thirst, while others
think they owed this name to the high towers (“turseis”) which they
were supposed to have built. As the giants were antagonistic to the
gods, the latter always strove to keep them at a distance, and drove
them away into Jötun-heim, in the cold regions of the pole, where they
condemned them to remain. The giants were almost invariably worsted in
their encounters with the gods, for they were heavy and slow witted,
and had nothing but stone weapons to oppose the Æsir’s bronze. In
spite of this inequality, however, they were sometimes greatly envied
by the gods, for they were thoroughly conversant with all knowledge
relating to the past. Odin himself was envious of this acquirement, and
no sooner had he secured it by a draught from Mimir’s spring than he
hastened off to Jötun-heim to measure himself against Vafthrudnir, the
most learned of the giant band. But he would never have succeeded in
defeating his antagonist in this strange encounter had he not ceased
inquiring about the past and propounded a question relating to the
future.
Of all the gods Thor was the most feared by the Jötuns, for he was
continually waging war against the frost and mountain giants, who would
fain have hindered agriculture and bound the earth forever in their
rigid bands. In fighting against them, Thor, as we have already seen,
generally had recourse to his crashing hammer Miölnir, with which he
reduced them to powder.
[Sidenote: Origin of the mountains.]
The Germans fancied that the uneven surface of the earth was due to
the giants, who, treading upon it while it was still soft and newly
created, marred its smoothness, while the giantesses, seeing the
valleys made by their huge footprints, shed copious tears, which formed
the streams. As such was the Teutonic belief, the people imagined that
the giants, who were their personifications of the mountains, were
huge uncouth creatures, who could only move about in the darkness or
fog, and were petrified as soon as the first rays of sunlight pierced
through the gloom or scattered the clouds.
This belief made them call one of their principal mountain chains the
Riesengebirge (giant mountains). The Scandinavians also shared this
belief, and to this day the Icelanders designate their highest mountain
peaks by the name of Jokul, a modification of the word “Jötun.” In
Switzerland, where the everlasting snows rest upon the lofty mountain
tops, the people still relate old stories of the time when the giants
roamed abroad; and when an avalanche comes crashing down the mountain
side, they say the giants have restlessly shaken off part of the icy
burden from their brows and shoulders.
As the giants were also personifications of snow, ice, cold, stone,
and subterranean fire, they were all said to be descended from the
primitive Fornjotnr, whom some authorities identify with Ymir.
According to this version of the myth, Fornjotnr had three sons: Hler,
the sea; Kari, the air; and Loki, fire. These three divinities were the
first gods, formed the oldest trinity, and their respective descendants
were the sea giants Mimir, Gymir, and Grendel, the storm giants
Thiassi, Thrym, and Beli, and the giants of fire and death, such as the
Fenris wolf and Hel.
As all the royal dynasties claimed descent from some mythical being,
the Merovingians asserted that their first progenitor was a sea giant,
who rose up out of the waves in the form of an ox, surprised the queen
while she was walking alone on the seashore, and induced her to become
his wife. She gave birth to a son named Meroveus, the founder of the
first dynasty of Frankish kings.
Many stories have already been told about the most important giants.
They reappear in many of the later myths and fairy-tales, and manifest,
after the introduction of Christianity, a peculiar dislike to the sound
of church bells and the singing of the monks and nuns.
[Sidenote: The giant in love.]
The Scandinavians relate, in this connection, that in the days of Olaf
the Saint a giant called Senjemand, who dwelt on the Island of Senjen,
was greatly incensed because a nun on the Island of Grypto daily sang
her morning hymn. The sound of this singing troubled his daydreams, for
he had fallen in love with a beautiful maiden called Juternajesta, and
was trying to gain courage to propose to her. When he made his halting
request, however, the fair damsel scornfully rejected him, declaring
that he was far too old and ugly to suit her taste.
“Miserable Senjemand--ugly and gray!
Thou win the maid of Kvedfiord!
No--a churl thou art and shalt ever remain.”
BALLAD (Brace’s tr.).
[Illustration: TORGHATTEN, NORWAY.]
In his anger at being thus scornfully refused, the giant swore
vengeance, and soon after he shot a great stone arrow from his bow
at the maiden, who dwelt eighty miles away. Her lover, Torge, also
a giant, seeing her peril and wishing to protect her, flung his
hat at the speeding arrow. This hat was a thousand feet high and
proportionately broad and thick, but a collision with it only spent the
force of the arrow, which, piercing the giant’s headgear, fell short
of its aim. Senjemand, seeing he had failed, and fearing the wrath
of Torge, mounted his steed and prepared to ride away as quickly as
possible; but the sun, rising above the horizon just then, turned him
into stone, as well as the arrow and Torge’s hat, which is now known as
the Torghatten mountain. The people still point out the stone arrow,--a
huge obelisk,--the hole in the mountain, which is 289 feet high and
88 feet wide, and the horseman on Senjen Island, apparently riding a
colossal steed and drawing the folds of his wide cavalry cloak closely
about him. As for the nun whose singing had so disturbed Senjemand
that he could not propose properly, she was petrified too, and never
troubled any one with her psalmody again.
[Sidenote: The giant and the church bells.]
Another legend relates that one of the mountain giants, annoyed by
the ringing of church bells more than fifty miles away, once caught
up a huge rock, which he hurled at the sacred building, but which
fortunately fell short and broke in two. Ever since then, on Christmas
eve, the peasants report that the trolls have come to raise the largest
piece of stone upon golden pillars, and to dance and feast beneath it.
A lady, wishing to know whether this tale were true, once sent her
groom to the place. The trolls came forward and hospitably offered him
a drink in a horn mounted in gold and ornamented with runes. Seizing
the horn, the groom flung its contents away and dashed off at a mad
gallop, closely pursued by all the trolls, from whom he escaped only by
passing through a stubble field and over running water. A deputation of
trolls visited the lady on the morrow to claim this horn, and when she
refused to part with it they laid a curse upon her, declaring that her
castle would burn down every time the horn was removed. This prediction
has thrice been fulfilled, and now the family guard their horn with
superstitious care. A similar drinking vessel, obtained in much the
same fashion by the Oldenburg family, is exhibited in the collection of
the King of Denmark.
The giants were not supposed to remain stationary, but were said to
move about in the darkness, sometimes transporting masses of earth and
sand, which they dropped here and there, thus forming the sandhills in
northern Germany and Denmark.
[Sidenote: The giants’ ship.]
A North Frisian tradition relates that the giants also possessed a
colossal ship, called Mannigfual, which constantly cruised about in
the Atlantic Ocean. Such was the size of this vessel that the captain
was said to pace the deck on horseback. The rigging was so extensive
and the masts so high that the sailors who went up as youths came down
as gray-haired men, having rested and refreshed themselves in rooms
fashioned and provisioned for that purpose in the huge blocks and
pulleys.
By some mischance it happened that the pilot once directed this immense
vessel into the North Sea, and wishing to return to the Atlantic as
soon as possible, yet not daring to turn around in such a small space,
he steered into the English Channel. Imagine the dismay of all on board
when they saw the passage grow narrower and narrower the farther they
advanced. When they came to the narrowest spot, between Calais and
Dover, it seemed barely possible that the vessel, drifting along with
the current, could force its way through. The captain, with laudable
presence of mind, promptly bade his men soap the sides of the vessel,
laying an extra-thick layer on the starboard, where the rugged Dover
cliffs threateningly rose. These orders were no sooner carried out
than the vessel entered the narrow space, and, thanks to the captain’s
precaution, it slipped safely through. The rocks of Dover scraped off
so much soap, however, that ever since then they have been very white
indeed, and the waves dashing against them still have a particularly
foamy appearance.
This exciting experience was not the only one which the Mannigfual
passed through, for we are told that it once, nobody knows how,
penetrated into the Baltic Sea, where, the water not being deep enough
to keep the vessel afloat, the captain ordered all the ballast thrown
overboard. Such was the amount of material thus cast on either side
the vessel into the sea that it formed the two islands of Bornholm and
Christiansoë.
[Sidenote: Princess Ilse.]
In Thuringia and in the Black Forest the stories of the giants are very
numerous indeed, and the peasants delight in telling about Ilse, the
lovely daughter of the giant of the Ilsenstein. She was so charming
that she was known far and wide as the beautiful Princess Ilse, and
was wooed by many knights, among whom she preferred the lord of
Westerburg. But her father did not at all approve of her consorting
with a mere mortal, and forbade her seeing her lover. Princess Ilse was
willful, and in spite of his prohibitions she daily visited her lover.
The giant, exasperated by her persistency and disobedience, finally
stretched out his huge hands and, seizing the rocks, tore a great
gap between the height where he dwelt and the castle of Westerburg.
Princess Ilse, perceiving the cleft which parted her from her lover,
recklessly flung herself over the precipice into the raging flood
beneath, where she was changed into a bewitching undine. She dwelt
here in the limpid waters for many a year, appearing from time to
time to exercise her fascinations upon mortals, and even, it is said,
captivating the affections of the Emperor Henry, who paid frequent
visits to her cascade. Her last appearance, according to popular
belief, was at Pentecost, a hundred years ago; and the natives have not
yet ceased to look for the beautiful princess, who is said still to
haunt the stream and wave her white arms to entice travelers into the
cool spray of the waterfall.
“I am the Princess Ilse,
And I dwell at the Ilsenstein;
Come with me to my castle,
And bliss shall be mine and thine.
“With the cool of my glass-clear waters
Thy brow and thy locks I’ll lave;
And thou’lt think of thy sorrows no longer,
For all that thou look’st so grave.
“With my white arms twined around thee,
And lapped on my breast so white,
Thou shalt lie, and dream of elf-land--
Its loves and wild delight.”
HEINE (Martin’s tr.).
[Sidenote: The giant’s plaything.]
The giants inhabited all the earth before it was given to mankind;
they very reluctantly made way for the human race, and retreated into
the waste and barren parts of the country, where they brought up
their families in strict seclusion. Such was the ignorance of their
offspring, that a young giantess, straying away from home, once came
to an inhabited valley, where for the first time in her life she saw
a farmer plowing on the hillside. Deeming him a pretty plaything, she
caught him up with his team, thrust them into her apron, and gleefully
carried them home to exhibit them to her father. But the giant
immediately bade her carry peasant and horses back to the place where
she had found them, and when she had done so he sadly explained that
the creatures whom she took for mere playthings, would eventually drive
all the giant folk away, and become masters of all the earth.