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534 GIANTS.
si bloz/ i.e. bare of knightly weapon, for they
carried (
Itolben
swasre, groze unde lange/ l Yet the r
eald sweord eotonisc pro
is used
bably meant one of stone, though the same expression
in Beow. 5953 of a metal sword mounted with gold ; even the
f
entisc helm/ Beow. 5955 may well be a stone helmet. It may
be a part of the same thing, that no iron sword will cut into
giants ; only with the pommel of the sword can they
be killed
(Ecke 178), or with the fist, p. 530 (see Suppl.).
Ancient buildings of singular structure, which have outlasted
many centuries, and such as the men of to-day no longer take in
hand, are vulgarly ascribed to giants or to the devil (conf. p. 85,
note on devil s dikes) : burg an berge, ho holmklibu, wrisilic
giwerc is said in Hel. 42, 5 of a castle on a rock (risonburg,
N. Bth. 173) a ; Wrisberg, from which a Low Saxon family takes
its name, stood near the village of Petze. These are the enta
geweorc of AS. poetry (p. 524): f
efne swa wide swd wcgas to
lagon enta cergeweorc innan burgum, strode stein/age, Andr. 2466.
3
stapulas storme bedrifene, eald enta geweorc, 2986. Our Anno-
lied 151 of Semiramis : die alten Babilonie stiphti si van cigelin
den alten, die die gigandi branten/ of bricks that giants burnt.
And Karlmeinet 35 :
f we dise burg stichte? ein rise in den alten
ziden. In 0. French poems it is either gaiant or paian (pagans)
that build walls and towers, e.g. in Gerars de Viane 1745 :
Les/ors tors, ke sont dantiquitey,
ke paian firent par lor grant poestey.
Conf. MoneY Unters. 242-4-7. 250. Whatever was put together
of enormous blocks the Hellenes named cydopean walls, while the
modern Greeks regard the Hellenes themselves as giants of the
old world, and give them the credit of those massive structures. 2
Then, as ancient military roads were constructed of great blocks
of stone (strata felison gifuogid, Hel. 164, 27), they also were
laid to the account of : giants iotna vegar (vise gigantum), Seem.
23 b
; usque ad giganteam viam : entMen
wee, MB. 4, 22 (about
1130). The common people in Bavaria and Salzburg call such
a road, which to them is world-old and uncanny, enterisch (Schm.
i Goliath too, 1 Sam. 17, 7, and 2 Sam. 21, 19 is credited with a hastile (spearstaff)
quasi liciatorium texentium (like a weaver s
2 beam)
Conf. Niebuhr s Bom. Hist. i. 192-3. An ancient wall is in Mod. Greek rb
f\\riviKo, ULrich s Eeise 1, 182.