CHAPTER X.

GIANTS, MYTHICAL AND OTHERWISE.

The Giant's Dance, Stonehenge. The Ramayana and giants of Ceylon. The wild men of Hanno, the Carthaginian. Gorillas. The giants of Lancashire, Shropshire, Cornwall, Ireland, and India compared. Gogmagog and Corineus. The Cyclops. Patagonian and other modern giants. Giants and monsters according to Pliny. Shakspere's monsters. The Amorites. The giants Og and Sihon. Remains of the ancient cities of Bashan. Sir Jno. Mandeville's Indian giants. Red Indian traditions of giants and gigantic pachyderms. Discoveries of huge fossil bones. Aryan Râkshasas or Atrins (devourers). Giants and devils. Milton's fallen angels. The trolls and giants of Scandinavia. Dethroned deities. The Æsir gods. Their overthrow by the light of the Christian dispensation. Nikarr, an appellation of Odin, the Old Nick of the present day. Giants degraded forms of original Aryan personifications of the forces of nature. Ancient and modern examples. Allegory. Lord Bacon's opinion. Passage into the heroes of romance. The King Arthur legends. The Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf. The monster Grendel of Hartlepool. The Arthur legend of Tarquin and Sir Lancelot, at Manchester. The Round table. Anachronisms in romance literature. The "Sangreal." Urien, the Arthur of the North of England. The Welsh bards, Taliesin and Llywarch Hen or the Old. Geoffrey of Monmouth and William of Newbury. Walter Map. Giants' coits and erratic boulders. Lancashire and Cheshire giants, near Stockport. Chivalry and the plundering Barons of the middle ages. Mythical Dwarfs. Tom Thumb. Connection of Druidical with Brahminical superstition. Page 197