Giant
"[5] Fossilized remains of ancient mammals and reptiles common to the Sivalik Hills of India may have influenced aspects of the Mahābhārata that tell of battles in which "hundreds of mighty, and sometimes gigantic, heroes, horses, and war elephants are said to have died.
"[6] Claudine Cohen, in her 2002 book The Fate of the Mammoth, argued that the history of human interaction with fossil bones of prehistoric megafauna was heavily influenced by giant lore.
Boccaccio devoted a passage of his Genealogies of the Pagan Gods to purported archeological discoveries in Sicily that he thought might be evidence of the historicity of The Odyssey's Polyphemus.
[7] The discovery of the so-called Claverack Giant in colonial New York triggered giantological investigations by two important early American intellectuals, Cotton Mather and Edward Taylor.
Josephus also described the Amorites as giants in his Antiquities of the Jews, circa 93 CE, indicating that some sort of fossils may have been on display at that time:[18] "For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants.
There were till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing.
Ancient historian Movses Khorenatsi wrote, "Hayk was handsome and personable, with curly hair, sparkling eyes and strong arms.
"[21] Mount Nemrut is known to have received its name from an Armenian tradition in which Nimrod was killed by an arrow shot by Hayk during a massive battle between two rival armies of giants to the south-east of Lake Van.
Giants stand for the Basque people reluctant to convert to Christianity who decide to stick to the old lifestyle and customs in the forest.
Sometimes they hold the secret of ancient techniques and wisdom unknown to the Christians, like in the legend of San Martin Txiki, while their most outstanding feature is their strength.
It follows that in many legends all over the Basque territory the giants are held accountable for the creation of many stone formations, hills and ages-old megalithic structures (dolmens, etc.
However, giants show different variants and forms, they are most frequently referred to as jentilak and mairuak, while as individuals they can be represented as Basajaun ("the lord of the forests"), Sanson (variation of the biblical Samson), Errolan (based on the Frankish army general Roland who fell dead at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass) or even Tartalo (a one-eyed giant akin to the Greek Cyclops Polyphemus).
[24] Tales of the same area also tells of giants who are able to crush humans with their feet and when laying down to sleep being so long as to reach from the mountains to the sea.
[25] In Greek mythology, the Gigantes (γίγαντες) were (according to the poet Hesiod) the children of Uranus (Ουρανός) and Gaia (Γαία) (spirits of the sky and the earth) where some depictions had them with snake-like legs.
The Greeks believed some of them, like Enceladus, to lie buried from that time under the earth and that their tormented quivers resulted in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Herodotus in Book 1, Chapter 68, describes how the Spartans uncovered in Tegea the body of Orestes, which was seven cubits long — approximately 3.73 m, or about 12 feet 3 inches.
The Cyclopes are also compared to giants due to their huge size (e.g. Polyphemus, son of Poseidon and Thoosa and nemesis of Odysseus in Homer's The Odyssey).
The Elder Cyclopes were the children of Gaia and Uranus, and later made Zeus' "master thunderbolt", Poseidon's trident, and Hades' "helm of darkness", during the Titanomachy.
[27][28] Jain cosmology divides the worldly cycle of time into two parts or half-cycles, avasarpani (age of descending purity) and ascending (utsarpani).
The jötnar are the origin of most of various monsters in Norse mythology (e.g. the Fenrisulfr) and in the eventual battle of Ragnarök, the giants will storm Asgard and fight the gods until the world is destroyed.
An old Icelandic legend says that two night-prowling giants, a man and a woman, were traversing the fjord near Drangey Island with their cow when they were surprised by the bright rays of daybreak.
According to Northern Paiute oral history, the Si-Te-Cah or Sai'i are a legendary tribe of red-haired cannibalistic giants, the remains of which were allegedly found in 1911 by guano miners in Nevada's Lovelock Cave.
In several legends, giants were evil beings that threatened, robbed and killed travellers or locals; such as Ellert and Brammert, in the province of Drenthe.
[36] Antero Vipunen is a giant shaman that appears in the Kalevala, meeting the epic hero Väinämöinen to teach him creation spells.
