GIANTS AND GIANTESSES A study in and belief by Lotte Motz - Hunter College, N.Y. The family of giants plays apart of great importance in North• , as this is presented in the 'Eddas'. The phy• sical environment as weIl as the race of gods and men owe their existence ultimately to the giants, for the world was shaped from a giant's body and the gods, who in turn created men, had de• scended from the mighty creatures. The energy and efforts of the ruling gods center on their battles with and giants; yet even so the world will ultimately perish through the giants' kindling of a deadly blaze. In the narratives which are concerned with human heroes trolls and giants enter, shape, and direct, more than other superhuman forces, the life of the protagonist. The mountains, rivers, or valleys of Iceland and Scandinavia are often designated with a giant's name, and royal houses, famous heroes, as weIl as leading families among the Icelandic settlers trace their origin to a giant or a giantess. The significance of the race of giants further is affirmed by the recor• ding and the presence of several hundred giant-names in the Ice• landic texts. It is not surprising that students of Germanic mythology and religion have probed the nature of the superhuman family. Thus giants were considered to be the representatives of untamed na• ture1, the forces of sterility and death, the destructive powers of

1. Wolfgang Golther, Handbuch der germanischen Mythologie, Leipzig 1895, quoted by R.Broderius, The Giant in Germanic Tradition, Diss. Univ. of Chicago 1933, p. 6. 84 wintertime2 , or an older dynasty of gods3 . In these efforts scho• lars have not treated the female members as aseparate group and have not attempted to ascertain whether giant-women might not have their own distinct and special qualities. The paper at hand wishes to examine just this issue and therefore looks to the inter• family relationships between male and female trolls to find those aspects which are shared and those which are special to each sex4 . I have observed that indeed giants and giantesses hold many qualities in common, such as their custom of dwelling in the wil• derness, or their occupations. Both sexes may show themselves as menacing or protective, both in command of magic skills and in possession of generative powers. It is also clear, however, that there is differentiation, that male giants appearmorefrequently as ancestral and giantesses more often as erotic beings, that the woman's action and emotions unfold more frequently in the con• text of a personal relationship. The woman is envisioned also as a fiercer and more warlike creature, and the man more strongly as generative power and as ruler over his domain. The most conspi• cuous relationship is between an aged giant and his daughter. Let us now consider the source material taken from the 'Eddas' and the Sagas, and the kennings of skaldic poets. The meaning of the giants' names has also yielded information. 1. We shall first consider the Sagas5 1.1. Habitation. Giants as weIl as giantesses are firmly settled in the rocks and glaciers of the wilderness. They also may inhabit a

2. E.O.G.Turville-Petre, and Religion of the North, London 1964, p. 177. Anne Holtsmark considers the giant Piazi as the representative of the icy storms of wintertime who had in this capicity seized the goddess Iöunn, apower of fruitfulness: "Myten om Idun og Tjatse i Tjodolvs Haustlong, in: ANF 64 (1949) pp. 1-73. 3. J acob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, reprint of the fourth edition, E.H.Meyer ed. Graz 1953, III p. 150. 4. Members of the family are designated by such names as: jötunn, risi, purs, all masculine and , neuter; the woman may also be a gygr or a skessa. 5. In this study I used the narratives contained in the twelve volume edition of the 'Islendinga sögur', Gu5ni Jonsson, ed. Reykjavik 1953, and the four volume set of the 'Fornaldar sögur', Gu()ni J6nsson, ed., Reykja\'ik 1959. Though these sagas were recorded in late medieval or even in early modern time they oontain much orally transrnitted material which had been extant in