On Giants

While leafing through The Book of Days: Oddities and Curiosities in the 365 Days of the Calendar, by Elizabeth and Gerald Donaldson (New York: A&W Publishers, 1979), I came across this statement for January 11th:

A human-like skeleton was found in 1613 entombed eighteen feet below the surface of a spot later called the Giant's Field in France. It measured twenty-five and one-half feet long and ten feet wide at the shoulders.

I wanted to believe this was true, so I did a quick web search and found a similar story, posted on Futility Closet:

January 11, 1613, some masons digging near the ruins of a castle in Dauphiné, in a field which (by tradition) had long been called the giant's field, at the depth of eighteen feet discovered a brick tomb thirty feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet high, on which was a gray stone, with the words Theutobochus Rex cut thereon; when the tomb was opened, they found a human skeleton entire, twenty-five feet and a half long, ten feet wide across the shoulders, and five feet deep from the breast-bone to the back, his teeth were each about the size of an ox's foot, and his shin bone measured four feet.

– Kirby's Wonderful and Scientific Museum, 1803

And then, I found this, from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle):

Near Mezarino in Sicily in 1516 there was found the skeleton of a giant whose height was at least 30 feet; his head was the size of a hogshead, and each tooth weighed 5 ounces; and in 1548 and in 1550 there were others found of the height of 30 feet.

There are other stories too of huge skeletons, lending credence to stories of Bigfeet or giants. Gould and Walter suggest, as others do, that the remains were misidentified and were probably mastodons or elephants, and possibly whales. What disappointment. I really wanted to believe this :-(

I guess this all makes sense when you consider that dinosaurs weren't really "discovered" until the 1840s, though fossils had been found before that. Humans from hundreds of years ago must really have wondered what animal these giants bones were from and, of course, they probably assumed a human-like being.

I like the idea that giants once roamed around, but I guess that didn't happen. Happy January 11th.