Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

GIANTS. 527
as the Avari in the Mid. Ages are = Chuni, the words Mn and
obor alike spring out of the national names Hun and Avar. 1 To
the Slavs, Tchud signifies both Finn and giant, and the Russ.
ispolin (giant) might originally refer to the
f
gens 8palorum y
of
Jornandes; conf. Schafarik 1, 286. 310. So closely do the
names for giant agree with those of ancient nations : popular
belief magnified hostile warlike neighbours into giants, as it
diminished the weak and oppressed into dwarfs. The Sanskrit
rdkshasas can have nothing to do with our riese, nor with the
OHG. recchio, MHG. recke, a designation of human heroes (see
Suppl.).
We find plenty of proper names both of giants and giantesses
preserved in ON., some apparently significant; thus Hrungnir
suggests the Gothic hrugga (virga, rod, pole) and our runge
(Brem. wb. 3, 558) ; Herbort 1385 : groz alsam ein runge/ Our
MHG. poems like giant s names to end in -olt, as Witolt, Fasolt,
Memerolt, etc.
A great stature, towering far above any human size, is ascribed
to all giants : stiff, unwieldy, they stand like hills, like tall trees.
According to the Mod. Greeks, they were as tall as poplars, and
if once they fell, they could not get up again [like Humpty
Dumpty]. The one eye of the Greek cyclops I nowhere find
imputed to our giants ; but like them 2 and the ancient gods,
(p. 322), they are often provided with many hands and heads.
When this attribute is given to heroes, gigantic ones are meant,
as Heimo, Starkaftr, Asperian (p. 387). But Ssem. 85 b
expressly
calls a ]?urs firihqfdudr, exactly as the MHG. Wahtelmsere names
a driliouptigen tursen (Massm. denkm. 109) : a remarkable in
stance of agreement. In Ssem. 35 a
appears a giant s son with
six heads, in 56 a the many-headed band of giants is spoken of,
and in 53 a giantess with 900 heads. Brana s father has three
(invisible) heads, Fornald. sog. 3, 574, where also it is said: f
]?a
1 Schafarik explains obor by the Celtic ambro above (p. 520n.) ; but in that case
the Polish would have been a,br.
2 Briareus or ^gaeon has a hundred arms (e/faro-yxei/sos, II. 1, 402) and fifty
heads, Geryon three heads and six hands ; in Hesiod s Theog. 150, Kottus, Gyges
and Briareus have one hundred arms and fifty heads. The giant in the Hebrew-
story has only an additional finger or toe given to each hand and foot : vir fuit
excelsus, qui senos in manibus pedibusque habebat digitos, i.e. viginti quatuor
(instead of the human twenty), 2 Sam. 21, 20. Bertheau s Israel, p. 143. 0. Fr.
poems give the Saracen giant four arms, two noses, two chins, Ogier 9817.