A Book of Giants: Tales of Very Tall Men of Myth, Legend, History, and Science.

Yvain was one of King Arthur's knights, and strange were his adventures. After defeating a mysterious knight in the forest and chasing his dying adversary into his town, he foun...

In the days when the Olympians still walked at times among men, Zeus and Poseidon and Hermes once found themselves benighted in a lonely region of the rough Bœotian country.

Troy had fallen. After ten years' siege by a hundred thousand of Greece's mightiest warriors, the ramparts built by Poseidon had still proved impregnable to assault; the fell ar...

Odin, he of the nine-and-forty names, dwelt in bright Asgard with his fellow Æsir and Asynjar. Father of gods and men though he was, born though he was of a giant mother, there...

After the Trojan War, Æneas, fleeing from the desolation of the city, came with Ascanius by ship unto Italy. There, for that Æneas was worshipfully received by King Latinus, Tur...

Many are the tales of King Arthur's valiant Round Table of knights--whose deeds have been sung almost more than those of the King himself. But from the day when as a "damoiseau...

There is a mound in Penrith churchyard, in the Cumberland county of England, which is still called "The Giant's Grave." A pair of twelve-foot, round stone pillars stand for head...

Once upon a time there was an old man who, whenever he heard anyone complain how many sons he had to care for, always laughed and said, "I wish that it would please God to give...

We think of Zeus as the mightiest god of Greece, accompanied by his servants Force, Might and Victory,--the Cloud-gatherer, the Rain-giver, the Thunderer, the Lightning-hurler,...

King Lisuarte of Great Britain was at table; the cloths were removed, and Galaor, Florestan and Agrayes were about him. These were among his foremost knights, but they grieved f...

A day Finn and his men were in the Hunting-hill they killed a great number of deer; and when they were wearied after the chase they sat down on a pleasant green knoll, at the ba...

Once on a time there was a King who had seven sons, and he loved them so much that he could never bear to be without them all at once, but one must be always with him. Now when...

A terrible brood of giants once lived on the Isle of Man--as anyone in western England could have told you a hundred years ago, or five hundred for that matter. To-day this isla...

Let us agree, arbitrarily, that people of from six to seven feet in height are only very tall men, but that those who exceed the seven-foot mark may fairly be called giants. Dur...

Hearken to the tale in the _Golden Legend_ of the giant Syrian, fair of face and spirit, who brought to the faith countless thousands of unbelievers before he fell a martyr in t...

The giants lingered longer in the Far North than elsewhere. About two hundred years after the death of Charlemagne there was living in Iceland a saga hero named Grettir the Stro...

Charlemagne held his state in the city of Pampeluna. This city of the Moors he had invested for six months; and being unable to take it, he prayed to St. James,--whereat the wal...

And it came to pass while Saul was King that the Philistines gathered together a great army, and marched into the land of Judah against the Israelites, and encamped in a plain n...

The Maya race, now living mostly in Guatemala and Yucatan, seem to be the descendants of a people whose civilization was old long before the appearance of those Aztecs whom Cort...

The Hebrew chroniclers tell us that the giants of their land were the children of the fallen angels who took to themselves wives from the beautiful daughters of men. When these...

One day, while an old woman stood by a stream washing her clothes, she chanced to see an enormous peach floating on the water. It was quite the largest she had ever seen, and as...

_Man in his youth was so fond of giants that, not finding them large or plentiful enough, he created a bounteous supply. He gave them precedence of himself. In the frozen North...

If you travel through that beautiful land of lakes and mountains north of the City of Mexico, you will hardly fail to visit the ancient sacred city of Cholula. Nor can you fail...

There was a merchant in Chong-ju who used to go to Quelpart to buy seaweed. One time when he drew upon the shore he saw a man shuffling along on the ground towards the boat. He...

In bygone times it was customary for a hunter's squaw to accompany her husband when he sought the chase. A dutiful wife on these occasions would carry home the game killed by th...

_Giant gods and demigods loom large in the myths of every land--in India, China and Arabia, as well as Greece and Scandinavaia. Many records follow of "real" giants, during the...

There is, alas! a good deal of justification for this iconoclastic position. The exact observations are not yet numerous enough to enable us to generalize; but it is all too evi...

_For more than two hundred years practically every English-speaking child has read, or been read, the stories of "Jack the Giant-killer" and "Jack and the Beanstalk," which are...

_Though it be hard at times to see of what usefulness were those troublesome monsters of the world's younger days,--there is no such difficulty with the thronging giants of the...