Not all giants were bad...

Press, 31 May 1977, Page 18

Not all giants were bad...

Giants have a bad reputation. When we read about them in stories they are often cruel and bloodthirsty. Ogres, who are giants too, are even worse, for they enjoy eating people. No-one could be sorry that the one in “Jack and the Beanstalk” crashed to the ground and died. There are giants in legends all over the world. And there are records about them in the Bible too. Og must have been one of the tallest for he was able to walk beside

Noah’s Ark during the flood. Once, too, during a fight, he had sufficient strength to pull up a mountain. He lived, it is said, to be 3000 years old — which, even for a giant, is a great age. Some people think that once, a long time ago, giants existed. I think, however, that mighty forces of nature like volcanoes and thunder may have suggested huge living creatures, and that gradually as time passed they were thought to look more

like men, though bigger, and legends grew up about them. However, though we hear so much about terrible giants, we should not forget the tales of good ones. These tell of kind and gentle giants who sometimes try to help others, particularly the small and weak. Though you will never meet a fairy-tale giant these days, you may come across a very very tall person. He is probably lonely and unhappy about being different. I was

reading recently about such a man who lived in the nineteenth century His name was Chang and he was born in China. He grew to be Bft tall (2.5 m and weighed 26st (165 kg). He was clever and spoke, as well as his own language, English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. He had a sad face in the photograph. If you would like to read about both bad and good giants, you will find exciting stories in “A Book of Giants” selected by William Mayne.