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GIANTS. 543
(see S uppl.). A Westphalian legend of the Weser has much the
same tale to tell : On the E. Soiling, near Mt. Eberstein, stands
the Himenbrink, a detached conical hill [brink = grassy knoll].
When the hiine who dwelt there of old wanted to wash his face
of a morning, he would plant one foot on his own hill, and with
the other stride over to the Eichholz a mile and a half away, and
draw from the brook that flows through the valley. If his neck
ached with stooping and was like to break, he stretched one arm
over the Burgberg and laid hold of Lobach, Negenborn and
Holenberg to support himself.
We are often told of two giant comrades or neighbours, living
on adjacent heights, or on two sides of a river, and holding con
verse. In Ostergotland, near Tumbo in Ydre-hiirad, there was a
jatte named Tumme ; when he wished to speak to his chum Oden
at Hersmala two or three miles off, he went up a neighbouring
hill Hogatoft, from which you can see all over Ydre (Widegren s
Ostergotland 2, 397). The first of the two names is apparently
the ON. ]?umbi (stultus, inconcinnus, conf. p. 528), but the other
is that of the highest god, and was, I suppose, introduced in
later legend by way of disparagement. German folktales make
such giants throw stone hammers and axes to each other (Deut.
sag. no. 20), which reminds one of the thundergod s hammer.
Two mines living, one on the Bberstein, the other on Homburg,
had but one axe between them to split their wood with. When
the Eberstein hime was going to work, he shouted across to
Homburg four miles off, and his friend immediately threw the axe
over ; and the contrary, when the axe happened to be on the
Eberstein. The same thing is told in a tradition, likewise West
phalian, of the hiines on the Hiinenkeller and the Porta throwing
their one hatchet. 1 The hiines of the Brunsberg and Wiltberg,
between Godelheim and Amelunxen, played at bowls together
across the Weser (Deut. sag. no. 16). Good neighbours too were
the giants on Weissenstein and Remberg in Upper Hesse ; they
had a baking -oven in common, that stood midway in the field, and
when one was kneading his dough, he threw a stone over as a
sign that wood was to be fetched from his neighbour s fort to
heat the oven. Once they both happened to be throwing at the
1 Redeker s Westfiilische sagen, no. 36.