G is for...Giants!
Today I am going to post about Giants. They don't come up in fairy tales very often, but I'll mention a couple of times where they do!
The main fairy tale involving Giants that I know is Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack sells his cow for some magic beans (as you do) and they grow into a beanstalk. He climbs up it to find a giant's house, and he goes about stealing things from it. (Apparently in later versions of the tale, they said that the giant killed Jack's father, to make sure the tale taught children morals.) The giant eventually finds out and chases him down the beanstalk, and Jack gets his mother to chop it down, causing the giant to fall and die. A lovely story!
In fairy tales such as this one, giants are always made out to be stupid and violent, and seem to enjoy eating humans. I particularly like the part when the giant finds out Jack is there, and says:
"Fee-fi-fo-fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
Such a nice image in my head. I also found a tale (via google, yay!) called Jack the Giant Killer, which is a cornish tale which I've never heard before. It was set in the time of King Arthur, and is about a boy called Jack (of course) who kills some giants and becomes well known for it. He even gets a place on the Round table! The giants are of course all made to look stupid and vicious in this tale, too.
However in more recent literature, giants are made much more human-like, with morals and kindness. For example, Roald Dahl's The BFG is much nicer than the ones you hear about in fairy tales, and he'd never grind anyone's bones to make his bread! (Hence his name; Big Friendly Giant!) And then you have Grawp in Harry Potter, who turns out to be a pretty heroic character in the end.
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The main fairy tale involving Giants that I know is Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack sells his cow for some magic beans (as you do) and they grow into a beanstalk. He climbs up it to find a giant's house, and he goes about stealing things from it. (Apparently in later versions of the tale, they said that the giant killed Jack's father, to make sure the tale taught children morals.) The giant eventually finds out and chases him down the beanstalk, and Jack gets his mother to chop it down, causing the giant to fall and die. A lovely story!
In fairy tales such as this one, giants are always made out to be stupid and violent, and seem to enjoy eating humans. I particularly like the part when the giant finds out Jack is there, and says:
"Fee-fi-fo-fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
Such a nice image in my head. I also found a tale (via google, yay!) called Jack the Giant Killer, which is a cornish tale which I've never heard before. It was set in the time of King Arthur, and is about a boy called Jack (of course) who kills some giants and becomes well known for it. He even gets a place on the Round table! The giants are of course all made to look stupid and vicious in this tale, too.
However in more recent literature, giants are made much more human-like, with morals and kindness. For example, Roald Dahl's The BFG is much nicer than the ones you hear about in fairy tales, and he'd never grind anyone's bones to make his bread! (Hence his name; Big Friendly Giant!) And then you have Grawp in Harry Potter, who turns out to be a pretty heroic character in the end.
Great post! I used to love the BFG as a child, and love Grawp in HP! In the welsh Mabinogian, a collection of mythological stories and folk tales there's a tale called Branwen, Ferch Llyr (Branwen, Daughter of Llyr) and her brother Bendigeidfran was a giant and king of Britain. Its a great folk tale, quite gory too but he walks over the sea to Ireland to save his sister. Just thought I'd mention a little welsh folk tale that I know of :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! That sounds like an interesting tale, thanks for sharing! I'll have to look it up :)
DeleteI love the BFG. Is it snozcumber he eats lol? :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it is! Haha I'd forgotten about that! :)
DeleteI featured Frost Giants yesterday. I love tales of sorts.
ReplyDeleteAwesome :)
DeleteI looooove the BFG! I'm reading it in Norwegian at the moment. He's called SVK in Norwegian though :D
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of giants in Norse mythology. There are stories of the world being made of giants bones, the seas are the giants blood and that the giant was made of a piece of salt that got licked by a cow, or something. I know. It's crazy-talk. :)
Nikki – inspire nordic
That does sound kind of crazy! Interesting though, I'll have to look it up! :)
DeleteIt's interesting how giants seemed to have fizzled out nowadays...
ReplyDeleteThis is me, Duncan D. Horne, visiting you from the A-Z challenge, wishing you all the best throughout April and beyond.
Duncan In Kuantan
It is, I couldn't find much on them at all! Thanks for visiting :)
DeleteNice post on the Giant and the beanstalk. He was indeed a scary giant!
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's just the bit about grinding bones, that's just mean! :)
DeletePhew. At first I thought you were going to talk about the New York Giants, in which case I would not have read it.
ReplyDeleteHaha no, traditional giants all the way :)
DeleteVisiting from the challenge.
ReplyDeleteI was attracted by the name of your blog and was interested by the topic of "Giants."
And, even though it was about neither the football or baseball team, I read it all the way through.
Giants are much more interesting than sports.
I think so :) Thanks for visiting! :)
DeleteLovely G post
ReplyDeletedo check out my G at GAC a-z
Thanks! I will :)
DeleteThanks! I'll check out your blog right now :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for following!!
ReplyDelete