Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

GIANTS.
541
felt something gall his foot ; he pulled off the shoe and turned it
down, when the stone fell where it now lies. Such stones are
also called crumb-stones. On the Soiling near Uslar lie some
large boundary-stones, 16 to 20 feet long,
and 6 to 8 thick : time
out of mind two giants were jaunting across country ; says the
one to the other, this shoe hurts me, some bits of gravel I think
it must be/ with that he pulled off the shoe and shook these stones
out. In the valley above Ilfeld, close to the Blihr, stands a huge
mass of rock, which a giant once shook out of his shoe, because
the grain of sand galled him. I am confident this myth also has
a wide circulation, it has even come to be related of a mere set
of men : The men of Sauerland in Westphalia are fine sturdy
fellows ; they say one of them walked to Cologne once, and on
arriving at the gate, asked his fellow-traveller to wait a moment,
while he looked in his shoe to see what had been teazing him so
all the while.
"
"
Nay
said the other,
"
hold out now till we get
to the inn." The Sauerlander said very well, and they trudged
up and down the long streets. But at the market-place he could
stand it no longer, he took the shoe off and threw out a great lump
of stone, and there it has lain this long while to prove my words/
A Norwegian folk-tale is given by Hammerich (om Ragnaroksmythen,
p. 93) : a jutel had got something into his eye, that
pricked him ; he tried to ferret it out with his finger, but that
was too bulky, so he took a sheaf of corn, and with that he
managed the business. It was a fir-cone, which the giant felt
between his fingers, and said : who d have thought a little thing
like that would hurt you so ? (see Suppl.).
The Edda tells wonderful things of giant Skr^mir, 1 in the
thumb of whose glove the god Thorr found a night s lodging.
Skrymir goes to sleep under an oak, and snores ; when Thorr
with his hammer strikes him on the head, he wakes up and asks
if a leaf has fallen on him. The giant lies down under another
oak, and snores so that the forest roars ; Thorr hits him a harder
blow than before, and the giant awaking cries, did an acorn fall
on my face ? He falls asleep a third time, and Thorr repeats
his blow, making a yet deeper dint, but the giant merely strokes
his cheek, and remarks, there must be birds roosting in those
babbler.
1 In the Faroe dialect Skrujmsli (Lyngbye, p. 480). ON. skraumr blatero,