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GIANTS.
557
must still be living in the popular traditions of Norway and
Sweden/ and even we in Germany may gather something from
oral narration, though not much from books. The monk of St.
Gall (Pertz 2, 756) has an Eishere (i.e. Egisheri, terribilis) of
Thurgau, but he is a 2
giant-like hero, not a giant.
Of sacrifices offered to giants (as well as to friendly elves and
home-sprites), of a worship of giants, there is hardly a trace.
Yet in Kormakssaga 242 I find blotrisi, giant to whom one
sacrifices; and the buttered stone (p. 546) may have been smeared
for the giantess, not by her, for it was the custom of antiquity to
anoint sacred stones and images with oil or fat, conf. p. 63. As
to the gude lubbe whose worship is recorded by Bp. Gebhard
(p. 526), his gianthood is not yet satisfactorily made out. Fasolt,
the giant of storm, was invoked in exorcisms ; but here we may
regard him as a demigod, like ThorgerSr and Irpa, who were
adored in Scandinavia (see Suppl.).
The connexion pointed out between several of the words for
giant and the names of ancient nations is similar to the agree
ment of certain heroic names with historic characters. Mythic
traits get mysteriously intergrown with historic, and as Dietrich
and Charles do duty for a former god or hero, Hungarians and
Avars are made to stand for the old notion of giants. Only we
must not carry this too far, but give its due weight to the
3
fact that iotunn and have in themselves an
]?urs
intelligible
meaning.
1
Hiilphers 3, 47 speaks of lojlige berattelse om fordna jattar? without going
into them.
2
It is quite another thing, when in the debased folktale Siegfried the hero
degenerates into a giant (Whs. heldensage, pp. 301-16), as divine Oden himself
(p. 155) and ThOrr are degraded into diivels and dolts. A still later view (Altd. bl.
1, 122) regards riese and recke (hero) as all one.
3 Schafarik (Slov. star. 1, 258) sees nothing in them but Geta and Thyrsus ;
at that rate the national name Thussagetae must include both.