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Giants
Apr 11, 2016 11:54:44 GMT -1
Post by Francis on Apr 11, 2016 11:54:44 GMT -1
I think Giants might need a discussion - do they come under ancestral beings of previous inhabitants? Presumably individuals could have their own day. Thinking about such questions as why Bendigeidfran is a giant and his brother Manawydan is (apparently?) not might be a way forward in a discussion thread on this? It may be that Giants are something analogous - even homologous - to the neo-pagan egregores? Ifan Goch is often described as defending the Conwy Valley stood with one foot on either side of the valley - typically downstream from the estuary near his chair - Cadair Ifan Goch. At this point there are iron age (or earlier) forts on either side of the valley - Pen-y-Gaer to the west and Gaer Oleu to the East. I wonder if Ifan Goch's defense of the Valley is connected with these forts - the power/inspiration of these forts? Many of the other legends of Giants can be contrived - beaten and forced! - into such an interpretation. Bendigeidfran as a Bridge - amongst other feats and obstacles overcome etc. Of course it's not a perfect fit and Heron's point about giants having family, and indeed having family members you aren't giants - a common feature - is possibly key. Bendigeid fran is a giant but not his brother Manawydan. Ysbaddaden is a giant but not his brother Custennin or nephew Gorau. Idris has a daughter of human size etc. This must tell us something of what was once meant by the definition perhaps title of Giant?
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Giants
Apr 11, 2016 16:24:35 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Apr 11, 2016 16:24:35 GMT -1
I certainly remember visiting Cadair ifan Goch in your woodlands and the sense of the power locus of this giant in the Conwy Valley. I tend to think of them primarily as aboriginal spirits or inhabitants of the land who remain as something strong and vital but as some of them seem to have grown into figures with individual personalities (apart from the generic 'ogre' image) I wonder if we are talking about the same indistinct division as in the thread on gods and land spirits? But giants at least *seem* more primitively attached to earthly rather than than spirit forms. More statically contained in a landscape?
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Giants
Apr 11, 2016 17:44:09 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Apr 11, 2016 17:44:09 GMT -1
Francis, you raise a really interesting point about giants being connected with forts (which they often are). Another example is Maelawr at Pen Dinas in Aberystwyth.
In the Triads one of 'Three Horses who carried the Three Horse Burdens' is 'Dappled the horse of the sons of Gwerthmwl Wledig, who carried Gweir and Gleis and Archenad up the hill of Maelawr in Ceredigion to avenge their father.'
Gwerthmwl also appears in the Triads as one of Three Bull-Spectres of the Island of Britain - the ghost of a 'bull' chieftain or a bull chieftain who has become wyllt? One assumes he became a 'Bull-Spectre' when he fought with Maelawr who may then have been viewed as human ruler?
The 'hill of Maelawr' is Pen Dinas. Bromwich cites Owen Owen Jones 'And in the land of Aber Teifi there was in former times before Brutus came to this island, the giant Maylor, and the place where he lives is still called Castell Maylor, built upon a high hill or ridge which is called Y Dinas, beside the river Ystwyth, within the freehold of the town of Aberystwyth.'
According to Wikipedia 'the story of Maelor Gawr and his three sons, Cornippyn, Crygyn and Bwba, is recorded in the late sixteenth century Welsh text "Olion Cewri Cymru..." ("The Giants of Wales and their dwellings") by Sion Dafydd Rhys (with the antiquarian spelling Maylor Gawr).
It came to pass that Maelor was captured in the cwmwd of Cyfeiliog, about twelve miles from his own castle and was sentenced to death. His enemies allowed him his final request to blow on his horn three times before his death. The first time he blew, his hair and beard fell out, and on the second blast of his horn, so great was the strength and force of the sounding that all his finger and toe-nails fell off completely. On the third blast of his horn the intensity of the force of the sound caused the horn to be broken into small pieces.
Cornippyn, who was hunting with his horse and his hound, heard the sound of his father's horn and lamented over his suffering. He made to rescue his father and in riding with such haste and swiftness, he tore the head of his hound off its body. He spurred his horse onwards, leaped in one great bound over the Ystwyth river and attacked his father's captors. In the ensuing battle, Cornippin was slain.
The other sons, Crygyn and Bwba, lived in Llanilar and Llanbadarn Fawr respectively, and murdered any man who approached their stronghold. They were both killed themselves through cunning, by an unnamed warrior in the same night.
Contemporary stories still relate to one of the more unusual residents of Penparcau village, the headless dog of King Maelor's son Cornippyn. The myth tells of how a giant, going to his father's rescue, rode at such a rate that his dog could not keep up with him and its head came off in the leash. The dog now roams, mournfully crying and looking for its long-lost owner.'
It seems possible Maelawr was once a human warrior with a fort on Pen Dinas who became an ancestral presence later known as a giant. And in this case, as with many giants, Maelawr and his children were slain.
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Giants
Apr 12, 2016 8:38:58 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Apr 12, 2016 8:38:58 GMT -1
I honestly hadn't given this much thought before now.
I figured that discrepancy between giants and their human sized relatives and family was possibly a result of historical 'greatness'; big characters and heroic deeds cause the person to regarded as giant rather than a physical giantism.
the other possibility, particularly when you look at giants as being more primordial or indigenous, is that they were actually a different group of humans. Maybe the mesolithic people were seen as such as pot-meoslithic people migrated and their cultural outlook began to dominate. certainly no mass migrations/invasion, but smaller waves of cultural migration. Perhaps the bronze age cultural migration of Indo-Europeanism remembered the older inhabitants of Britain as being giants.
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Giants
Apr 12, 2016 21:30:29 GMT -1
Post by Gwenno on Apr 12, 2016 21:30:29 GMT -1
I've been out and about in search of Moll but as I said before she seems to be about but avoiding me, or avoiding humans anyway. In a book of local folklore it says she put the stone on Hay Bluff, if anyone knows that. Then she did the same with other stones further north near here. So she gets about up and down the Wye Valley. I'm sure she#s on the moors when I go up there, but keeping her distance. A bit like a wild animal. Does that sound right?
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Giants
Apr 14, 2016 11:40:17 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Apr 14, 2016 11:40:17 GMT -1
@ Lee - I also feel that giants could have developed from older human peoples.
A story that renders them truly ancient is Llasar's appearance from the Lake of the Cauldron and his and Cymidei's population of Ireland then Britain with giants. In this version they origin from deep waters - from Annwn - the deep. In this sense they're quite other and primordial.
A thing that riles me is the lack of female giants. Aside from Cymidei they are all diminished giant's daughters with little power of independence. A product of the patriarchal culture that told their stories surely?
@ Gwenno
Thanks for telling us about Moll. If humans haven't interacted with her for a while she may well seem wild. She probably is. I recall my experience of Idris was massively disorientating and quite frightening. I nearly scooted off down the wrong side of the mountain toward the wrong lake down a path that shouldn't be walked anymore!
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Giants
Apr 14, 2016 12:56:07 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Apr 14, 2016 12:56:07 GMT -1
there is also the giant and his wife who came out of the sea in 'Branwen' carrying the cauldron whihc Bendigeidfran went on to own.
Coming out of the sea in the west is bringing to mind the sunken lands of the Wales-Ireland region lot during the end of the ice age whihc would certainly have been inhabited by the Mesolithic people. Again, another possibility of giants as early indigenous people.
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Giants
Apr 15, 2016 7:33:01 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Apr 15, 2016 7:33:01 GMT -1
@:Lorna, thanks for writing about my local giants. You know more about them than me! I was in the National Library yesterday for another reason but decided to get out Groom's Welsh Giants/Cewri Cymru as well. The extracts given there from the Peniarth mss more or less tell the same story that you have given. There is, by the way, a street named 'Maes Maelor', at the foot of Pen Dinas so he still as a memorial of some sort. @:Gwenno I also looked up Moll , said to be the wife of a giant of Painscastle who carried off a certain 'Miss Phillips' while she was "disporting with her lover" called Arthur (this from a story told to Kilvert by a farmhand in 1870). Arthur then went to Old Radnor castle and recruited help from 40 men who were seven feet tall to rescue her, but the giant got help from Hay Castle and a battle of the giants ensued. Moll's husband was killed, leaving her to roam the moors alone. Grooms speculates that this may have been based on conflicts between the Welsh and Norman marcher lords and/or legendary battles between Celts and Saxons. Characterising the giants as invaders is an interesting reversal of the idea that they aboriginal inhabitants such as in the Maelor story where they are specifically said to have been here before Brutus settled Britain from Troy. My own feeling is that they are indeed aboriginal and a bit wild and the fact that they avoid human contact makes them different from gods or some land spirits. But in folklore stories about original inhabitants and invaders could get mixed up in the re-tellings.
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Giants
Apr 16, 2016 7:24:30 GMT -1
Post by Gwenno on Apr 16, 2016 7:24:30 GMT -1
Lorna that sounds scary. I suppose giants might lead you the wrong way and then go off and leave you.
Heron Oh Kilvert's Diary. I've got that and looked it up so I could have found that story before. What you say about it all getting mixed up in stories makes sense. Learning a lot here. Am going to Painscastle today. Just because of that story. Just the right day for it.
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Giants
Apr 19, 2016 11:23:34 GMT -1
Post by Gwenno on Apr 19, 2016 11:23:34 GMT -1
I went to Painscastle where the giant (Moll's husband) lived. It's a quiet village with the site of an old motte and bailey castle and double earthworks all around it. I could imagine him living here keeping an eye on the River Wye over by Hay.
As well as looking up about the giant in Kilvert's Diary I also looked at some of his records about local customs on Mayday. He says that “birch and wittan are put over the door” to keep out witches. He says that he hope this will keep the Old Witch away but “young witches are welcome” and he was a clergyman, the old letcher.
It also says in his diary that a birch tree was decorated with red and white rags outside the stables to stop fairies riding the horses or plaiting their tails. Why would the fairies be afraid of some rags?
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Giants
Apr 19, 2016 15:38:45 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Apr 19, 2016 15:38:45 GMT -1
I went to Painscastle where the giant (Moll's husband) lived. It's a quiet village with the site of an old motte and bailey castle and double earthworks all around it. I could imagine him living here keeping an eye on the River Wye over by Hay. As well as looking up about the giant in Kilvert's Diary I also looked at some of his records about local customs on Mayday. He says that “birch and wittan are put over the door” to keep out witches. He says that he hope this will keep the Old Witch away but “young witches are welcome” and he was a clergyman, the old letcher. It also says in his diary that a birch tree was decorated with red and white rags outside the stables to stop fairies riding the horses or plaiting their tails. Why would the fairies be afraid of some rags? That's a good question Gwenno. I'd say they probably wouldn't be afraid of the rags but they might draw attention to the birch tree as the effective agent?
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Giants
Apr 20, 2016 8:11:24 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Apr 20, 2016 8:11:24 GMT -1
Thanks for sharing some of your local lore, Gwenno. It's interesting to hear Moll's husband is associated with a hillfort site.
I'm also intrigued by the hope only the Old Witch will be kept away. Maybe a disguised reference to a local hag ?deity? possibly associated with winter?
Not too sure why the rags would keep the fairies away. May be worth looking in to in relation to other local beliefs?
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Giants
May 10, 2016 17:36:36 GMT -1
Post by lorna on May 10, 2016 17:36:36 GMT -1
I've found a couple of blog posts relating to giants. 'The Sleeping Giant of Cribarth' by Rod at Singing Head tells the story of Cribwr Gawr in the Tawe valley with a fantastic pic of him singinghead.wordpress.com/2015/12/02/the-sleeping-giant-of-cribarth/'Reclaiming Nonna: Forgotten Goddess' by Becky Thomas at the Goddess Pages reclaims St Non as a Nonna, a giantess of Plant Llŷr: 'Perhaps we should remember instead Nonna, giantess of Plant Llŷr in her birth throes becoming one with the earth itself, the waves of her convulsing womb causing the earth to reach up to the heavens in a circle of stone as the earth convulsed in the moment of bringing forth life.' I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. www.goddess-pages.co.uk/reclaiming-nonna-forgotten-goddess/
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Giants
May 11, 2016 21:03:29 GMT -1
Post by Heron on May 11, 2016 21:03:29 GMT -1
I've not come across that one before, incredible how it does look just like sleeping giant! There's an incredible amount of detail and associated matter in that article, maybe it bit more than is needed. Non's Well near St Davids is quite an atmospheric site and a quiet contrast to the cathedral not far away. There is evidence that it was a pre-christian site and so to regard Non as a giant is certainly valid. As David's 'mother' she is clearly his predecessor as the holy presence at this site who has been incorporated into the new religion in the guise of a saint and as the source of David's power. For me this is enough. But reconstructing her as a goddess and giving her an alternative name is certainly possible. For me, pulling in that amount of detail as if it were historically verifiable seems to try a little harder than necessary to make the case. I'd be convinced with much less.
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Giants
May 13, 2016 9:42:05 GMT -1
Post by Lee on May 13, 2016 9:42:05 GMT -1
First off I will say that often I am very skeptical when someone is trying to dig up a god or goddess from the Saints or other pseudo/historical figures. In context though, I think this i a good bet even if it goes a bit too far trying to equate with Roman goddess/spirits of fate or even the Egyptian sources- that is where it gets too tenuous. We can also leave aside the Sea Serpent God Dewi too HOWEVER as an echo of a mythological giant who lived on these islands as a kind of indigenous spirit then I think this might be on to something. I wonder if the "giant" colours our ideas a bit too much with images of fantasy tales such as Jack and the beanstalk and the BFG? rather than huge people, maybe we need to think more like the titans of Greek myth perhaps, primal forces of the landscape perhaps, not so much andedion of the underworld but wights or spirits of place?
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Giants
May 15, 2016 10:07:06 GMT -1
Post by lorna on May 15, 2016 10:07:06 GMT -1
Yes, 'primal forces of the landscape' seems apt.
I found another giant story this week. Apparently the Roman Fort of Mamucium in Manchester was associated with a giant called Tarquin. According to a Dr Hibbert he was a Saxon chieftain and was killed by Sir Lancelot, who Hibbert claims was fostered by Nimue, the Lady of the Lake of Martin Mere and Lancashire stems from his name! As far as I can see there is little legitimacy to this story. Tarquin is a Roman name not Saxon. Lancelot is an invention of Chretien de Troyes (although Loomis has equated him with Lleog and Lugh!). It's my feeling this isn't a story with ancient roots but was made up at a far later date. The only thing I found which suggested a giant's presence was the 'Giant's Basin' where the canals are drained off. I sensed a bit of a presence there but, if it was a giant, I doubt he/she was really called Tarquin!
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Giants
May 15, 2016 14:47:19 GMT -1
Post by Lee on May 15, 2016 14:47:19 GMT -1
Formorians is the word I was looking for, though obviously that is the Irish version. Cewri is the term for 'giants' I cam across, so perhaps we can make use of that? welsh word that separates the concept from 'giant' and the associated baggage.
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Giants
May 16, 2016 11:27:44 GMT -1
Post by Gwenno on May 16, 2016 11:27:44 GMT -1
St Davids mum a giant? Oh I do like that. Lots of lights in my head turning on and saying yes:)
The writing about Nonna was interesting too. I agree what Lee and heron say about too much detail there. But am thrilled with this giant idea. I think Non's Day is 2 March, a day later than St Davids Day, so maybe we should celebrate that instead?
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Giants
May 21, 2016 11:42:15 GMT -1
Post by lorna on May 21, 2016 11:42:15 GMT -1
Yes, that would be a good day for anyone with a connection of Nonna to hold a celebration for her
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