Giants and dwarfs.

  • Wood, Edward J.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Giants and dwarfs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    man’s foot, about six feet in length, cut out of the rock, which is pretended to be the identical print of his foot. Pomponius Mela, a Spaniard, who flou- rished about the year of the Christian era, says cer- tain Indian tribes were of enormous stature, and mounted their elephants as we do our horses. In an Indian canonical work called Bagavadam, or a system of divine learning, published about 1788, is a dis- course on giants. King Arthur was, according to old legendary story, both a giant and a conqueror of giants. Dr. Forman, in a curious paper on such monsters, says: 11 King Arthur was fifteen foote longe in the prime of his yers” (Ms. Ashmole); and he also tells us of a Sir Grawaine, who was twelve feet and a half in height; and of an apocryphal queen, one Gruini- ver, Graynore, Graynour, or Grwennor, who was twelve feet long. Robinson’s translation of Be- laud, 1582, contains an account of the pretended moving of the bones of Arthur and his queen, by which the world was called upon to believe that they were of huge stature. The Chronicles of Great Bri- tain, written by John de Wavrin, between the years 1445 and 1455, tell us that while Arthur was so- journing in his tents on the sea-shore of Britain tidings came to him that a giant of wonderful size had come into the country from Spain, and carried off Helen, whom he had taken to the top of a moun- tain called St. Michael, in Cornwall, and that nume- rous knights had followed him in order to recover
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