[gothic-l] Gothic Language Corner - Giant Addendum

[Grsartor@aol.com [gothic-l]]

About the differences in sense between the words for a giant: I read  
somewhere that, if I recall it right, the Norse "risi" suggested size, "joetunn"  
strength, and "thurs" stupidity. I also think I read somewhere that the 
first of  these was related to the English verb "rise", or Norse "risa". But if 
the  original form is something like "wrisja" this is presumably not so.
 
One last thing, a question from someone that does not know how to  
reconstruct original forms of Germanic words, or any other for that matter: if  
"thauris" is an a-stem, how is it declined, e.g., what is the genitive?
 
Gerry T.
 
 
In a message dated 02/03/2015 03:08:00 GMT Standard Time,  
gothic-l at yahoogroups.com writes:



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 si ght 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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