in Dorset was probably carved about 700-1100CE. John Matthews writes in
Taliesin: Shamanism and the Bardic Mysteries in Britain and Ireland (1992) that giants are very common throughout British folklore, and often represent the "original" inhabitants, ancestors, or gods of the island before the coming of "civilised man", their gigantic stature reflecting their "
otherworldly" nature. Giants figure prominently in Cornish, Breton and Welsh folklore, and in common with many
animist belief systems, they represent the force of nature. The modern
Standard Written Form in Cornish is
Kowr singular (
mutating to
Gowr),
Kewri plural, transcribed into Late Cornish as
Gour, "Goë", "Cor" or similar. They are often responsible for the creation of the natural landscape, and are often
petrified in death, a particularly recurrent theme in
Celtic myth and folklore. An obscure Count of
Brittany was named
Gourmaëlon ruling from 908 to 913 and may be an alternative source of the Giant's name
Cormoran, or
Gourmaillon, translated by
Joseph Loth as "he of the brown eyebrows". The foundation myth of Cornwall originates with the early
Brythonic chronicler
Nennius in the
Historia Brittonum and made its way, via Geoffrey of Monmouth into Early Modern English canon where it was absorbed by the
Elizabethans as the tale of
King Leir alongside that of
Cymbeline and
King Arthur, other mythical British kings. Carol Rose reports in
Giants, Monsters, and Dragons that the tale of
Jack the Giant Killer may be a development of the Corineus and Gogmagog legend. The motifs are echoed in the
Hunting of Twrch Trwyth. In 1136,
Geoffrey of Monmouth reported in the first book of his imaginative
The History of the Kings of Britain that the indigenous giants of Cornwall were slaughtered by Brutus, the (
eponymous founder of Great Britain), Corineus (eponymous founder of
Cornwall) and his brothers who had settled in Britain after the
Trojan War. Following the defeat of the giants, their leader
Gogmagog wrestled with the warrior
Corineus, and was killed when Corineus threw him from a cliff into the sea: The match is traditionally presumed to have occurred at
Plymouth Hoe on the Cornish-
Devon border, although
Rame Head is a nearby alternative location. In the early seventeenth century,
Richard Carew reported a carved chalk figure of a giant at the site in the first book of
The Survey of Cornwall:
Cormoran (sometimes Cormilan, Cormelian, Gormillan, or Gourmaillon) is the first giant slain by Jack.
Cormoran and his wife, the giantess
Cormelian, are particularly associated with
St Michael's Mount, apparently an ancient pre-Christian site of worship. According to Cornish legend, the couple were responsible for its construction by carrying
granite from the West Penwith Moors to the current location of the Mount. When Cormoran fell asleep from exhaustion, his wife tried to sneak a
greenschist slab from a shorter distance away. Cormoran awoke and kicked the stone out of her apron, where it fell to form the island of Chapel Rock.
Trecobben, the giant of
Trencrom Hill (near
St Ives), accidentally killed Cormelian when he threw a hammer over to the Mount for Cormoran's use. The giantess was buried beneath Chapel Rock. hangs the giants Blunderbore and Rebecks
Blunderbore (sometimes Blunderboar, Thunderbore, Blunderbus, or Blunderbuss) is usually associated with the area of
Penwith, and was living in Ludgvan Lese (a
manor in
Ludgvan), where he terrorised travellers heading north to St Ives. The Anglo-
Germanic name 'Blunderbore' is sometimes appropriated by other giants, as in "
Tom the Tinkeard" and in some versions of "
Jack and the Beanstalk" and "
Molly Whuppie". In the version of "Jack the Giant Killer" recorded by
Joseph Jacobs, Blunderbore lives in
Penwith, where he kidnaps three lords and ladies, planning to eat the men and make the women his wives. When the women refuse to consume their husbands in company with the giant, he hangs them by their hair in his dungeon and leaves them to starve. Shortly, Jack stops along the highway from Penwith to Wales. He drinks from a fountain and takes a nap (a device common in Brythonic Celtic stories, such as the
Mabinogion). Blunderbore discovers the sleeping Jack, and recognising him by his labelled belt, carries him to his castle and locks him in a cell. While Blunderbore is off inviting a fellow giant to come help him eat Jack, Jack creates nooses from some rope. When the giants arrive, he drops the nooses around their necks, ties the rope to a beam, slides down the rope, and slits their throats. A giant named Blunderbore appears in the similar Cornish fairy tale "
Tom the Tinkeard" (or "Tom the Tinkard"), a local variant of "
Tom Hickathrift". Here, Blunderbore has built a hedge over the King's Highway between St Ives and
Marazion, claiming the land as his own. The motif of the abduction of women appears in this version, as Blunderbore has kidnapped at least twenty women to be his wives. The hero Tom rouses the giant from a nap while taking a wagon and oxen back from St Ives to Marazion. Blunderbore tears up an elm to swat Tom off his property, but Tom slides one of the axles from the wagon and uses it to fight and eventually fatally wound the giant. The dying giant confers all his wealth to Tom and requests a proper burial.
Thunderdell is a two-headed giant that crashes a banquet that is prepared for Jack. ,
Galligantus and the sorcerer transform the Duke's daughter into a white doe
Galligantus is a giant who holds captive many knights and ladies and a Duke's daughter who has been transformed into a white doe through the power of a sorcerer. Jack beheads the giant, the sorcerer flees, the Duke's daughter is restored to her true shape, and the captives are freed. == H. G. Wells ==