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520
GIANTS.
meaning of giant. 1
ON. iotull, OHG. ezal
2
(edax) ; that would explain the present
Possibly there was beside iotunn, also an
Norwegian term for giant: jotul, jutul, Hallager 52. Faye 7
(see Suppl.). 3
Our second term is likewise one that suggests the name of
a nation. The ON. purs seems not essentially different from
iotunn ; in Sn. 6 Yniir is called ancestor of all the hrim]?urses, in
Saem. 118 a all the iotnar are traced up to him. In particular
songs or connexions the preference is given
to one or the other
appellative
the giants are always iotnar, never )?ursar, and there is no
: thus in the enumeration of dialects in the Alvismal
Thursaheimr in use for lotunheimr, lotnaheimr; but Thrymr,
thbugh dwelling in lotnaheimr, is nevertheless called ]?ursa
drottinn (Saem. 70. 71) and not iotna drottinn, but he summons
the iotnar (73 a
), and is a iotunn himself (74 a
). In Seem. 85 b
both iotnar and hrim]?ursar are summoned one after the other,
so there must be some nice distinction between the two, which
here I would look for in the prefix hrim : only hrimjmrsar, no
hrimiotnar, are ever met with ; of this hrimfmrs an explanation
will be attempted further on. Instead of
)?urs there often occurs,
especially at a later stage of the language, the assimilated form
puss, particularly in the pi. J?ussar, hrimjmssar ; a dasrnonic being
in the later sagas is called Thusselin (Miiller s Sagab. 1, 367-8),
nay, the Danish tongue has retained the assimilation in its tosse,
clumsy giant, dolt (a folk-song has 4
tossegrefve) and a , Norwegian
dasmon bears the name tussel. The ON. ]?urs,
like several names
of gods, is likewise the title of a rune-letter, the same that the
Anglo-Saxons called
]?orn (conf. ]?urs rista/ Saam. 86 a
)
: a
notable deviation, as the AS. tongue by no means lacks the
word in ; Beow. 846 we find pyrs, and also in the menology in
1 Can the witch Jettha of the Palatinate (p. 96 note) be a corruption of Eta, Eza ?
Anyhow _the Jettenbiihel (Jetthro collis) reminds us of the Bavarian Jetteiiberg
(Mpn. boica 2, 219, ann. 1317), and Mount Jetten in Eeinbote s Georg 1717, where
it is misprinted Setten. Near Willingshauseu in Hesse is another Jetteiiberg, see
W. Crrimm On the runes, p. 271.
5 The ruined Weissenstein, by Werda near Marburg, was ace. to popular legend
the abode of a giant named Essel (ezzal?), and the meadow where at the fall of his
castle he sank its golden door in the E. Lahn, is still called Ksselswerd.
3 Isidore s glosses render the Gallic name of a people ambro by devorator, which
agrees with the OHG. transl. manezo, man-eater (Graff 1, 528), the well-known
MHG. manezze.
4 So thp. Dan. fos, fossen, for the ON. fors.