[gothic-l] Gothic Language Corner - Giant Addendum

[Johann Dröge anheropl0x@gmail.com [gothic-l]]

Very interesting information. Never knew this, but it makes sense.
On Mar 1, 2015 9:08 PM, "edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l]" <
gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> In one of my earlier posts, I attempted to reconstruct the word for
> 'giant' in Gothic. There was an error in the reconstruction, and the
> following then is meant as a correction.
>
>
> Based on the cognates OE 'thyrs,' ON 'thurs,' and OHG 'dhuris,' together
> with the Latinized Gothic name 'Thorismundus' (= *Thaurismunds), the late
> Proto-Germanic form would have been *'thur(i)saz,' and the expected
> Gothic form *'thauris' (masc a-stem).
>
>
> There was, however, more than one term for 'giant' in Germanic. ON 'risi,'
> OHG 'riso' (> ModG 'Riese') and OS 'wrisi-lik' 'enormous' suggest a
> proto-form *'wrisjan' (masc. n-stem) 'giant.' A Hellenized Gothic name
> found in Procopius (BG 3,35), to wit, 'Rhisioulphos' (= *Wrisjawulfs)
> suggests that the reflex of this second term was also known in Gothic,
> namely, *'wrisja' (masc. n-stem).
>
>
> How these - and a few other - Germanic terms differed in meaning, if at
> all, is hard to say.
>
>
> It might noted further here that while we tend to think of giants as
> invariably huge, monstrously big, the giants of the ancient north appear to
> have been a far more variable race. Saxo Grammaticus (1, 13) relates a
> story of a king named Gram, who "impersonated a giant," thus: "he put on
> goat-skins to intimidate anyone who appeared in his path" and was
> "accoutred thus in an assortment of animal hides, with a terrifying club in
> his right hand."
>
>
> We hear later (1, 21) of his son Hading, who attracted the amorous
> attention of a giantess:
>
>
> "When he pointed out that the size of her body was unwieldy for human
> embraces and the way she was built undoubtedly suggested that she came from
> giant stock, she replied:
>
> 'Don't let the sight of my strange largeness affect you. I can make the
> substance of my body small or great, now thin, now capacious. Sometimes I
> shrivel at will, sometimes expand. At one moment my stature reaches the
> skies, at another I can gather myself into the narrower proportions of
> men.'"
>
>
> The Eddas also speak of the gods mating with giants. It would appear then
> that size alone was not the main distinguishing feature of ancient Nordic
> giants, if Saxo and the Eddas are truly representative of earlier beliefs:
> a frightening strange "wild-man" aspect and capricious variability in size
> appear to have been significant, if not the main, features of these
> creatures.
>
>
> Edmund
>  
>
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