A0543: Why are there so many legends and myths about giants?

If we want to talk about giants, then we must first define what constitutes a giant in the first place. If we know what a giant is and what constitutes a great man, then we can also recognise in the ancient texts when giants were actually present on your earth and when only extraordinary men were spoken of who were also great, but who by definition were not giants. We will not only explain when a giant is a giant, but we will put into perspective some of your stories that speak of giants but only describe extraordinary people. 

If you were to face a person today who is taller than two metres, would you call him a giant, we ask? No, usually not, because in western culture people are already very tall. In Oriental-Asian areas it is different, so that a person with a height of more than two metres will cause quite a stir. If we take a closer look at human beings, we discover a specific average in many areas on earth, which is greater in Europe than in Japan. Japanese are still quite small, whereas Europeans literally grow in length. If we look at the body of the average Japanese, we see a very balanced diet, which Japanese society has practised for a very long time. If we look at European society, we immediately see that this society is made up of many different races that do not enjoy a homogeneous dietary spectrum, but these races have completely different approaches to their diet. If a human race is very traditional in its diet, then the human bodies will not show very much variance in body size. If a human race is constantly eating a different diet, so to speak, then this dietary variance will always cause the human bodies to grow larger and larger over generations. The human body is controlled by many processes that also determine growth. If the body notices that apparently not only is there an abundance of food, but also that the variety of food is unusually well developed, then processes will see to it that growth is stimulated and this race of human beings will become larger and larger in relation to other races. 

Now, if there are races that grow larger and larger over generations, are there also races that grow smaller and smaller over generations because their dietary diversity decreases, we ask? No, your pygmies were quite a different race of men, and modern men only ever grow larger, but never smaller, unless the race opens outwards to other races. If a society is among itself and its dietary variance continues to decline because they eat an increasingly one-sided diet, then that society will not be reduced in body size, but natural selection will ensure that the number of the population is reduced. If the food variance increases again, the population will increase again and the body size will also increase. There will always be people who appear unusually large and who stand out from the mediocrity of the race, but these people have not grown physically as a whole person, but influences have caused the physique to accelerate in growth, which does not mean that all human organs have also been adapted to this growth. These people are exceptionally large, but they can only move with difficulty, which will always lead to physical discomfort. When a race as a whole grows in height, the whole body will experience this growth, so that today there are many sportsmen who are taller than two metres and who perform outstandingly. If such an athlete were to wear armour 500 years ago in the Middle Ages, you would truly say that a giant stands before you, because you, as the average population, are much smaller. This athlete, who impresses with his size and his strength, will have an effect on his smaller opponents, so that they will hardly put up a real fight. Were there such people in the Middle Ages, we ask? No, there were people who could impress by their size, but they were not people who were tall as a total human being, they had only experienced accelerated growth and suffered from many physical symptoms which they found difficult to conceal. They were tall, which always left a lasting impression on everyone present, but they were also physically frail. 

So what are giants if tall people do not fall into this category, we ask? Giants are not a special kind of human being because, strictly speaking, giants do not exist. Consider for a moment what attributes you ascribe to a giant? Tall and violent would be such attributes. Would genius be such an attribute, we ask? No, most giants in your stories are not clever. If they are not very clever, how could they become so big, when dietary diversity is also related to human ingenuity, we ask? Not at all, because your biblical giants are something that actually existed, but also only because there were humans who gained many skills and they used those skills to create beings that do not exist on any world in your universe. You are creative beings because you can actually materialise anything you imagine through your power of thought, but you no longer have these skills to this extent because early humans used them to create unimaginably horrible creatures that then eked out an existence. 

When Atlantis fell, many of these creatures were released from their existence by their death and the human race was punished by this, so that since then it has no longer been able to create such monstrosities, which no longer had anything natural about them. The Atlantians had also created real giants who also had the attributes of giants. Why did the Atlantians create these horrible creatures, you may ask, and we will tell you. They created them only for entertainment in great arenas, so that these creatures could fight other creatures there until they died. This was so inhumane that it was one of the reasons why Atlantis disappeared from the face of the earth in its former form. These creatures are the beings you often hear about in your sagas and myths. Is the dragon also one of these creatures, we ask? No, there were creatures that had something dragon-like about them, but dragons are exceedingly clever and they are not physically created creatures either, dragons are embodied spiritual beings with a special task. The giants existed and they didn’t have much human about them except their physical form, but the Atlantians were very experimental so there were many very large hybrid forms which we will address in great detail in the series on Atlantis when the writer finally starts that series. There were giants, but they would have rampaged through the land like giant beasts if they had been free, so the Atlantians created many cave systems where these creatures had to wait for their next battle. 

There is one more thing we want to announce. These cave systems still exist today and many creatures died there after the fall of Atlantis, but not all creatures. These creatures have also reproduced and they have also evolved spiritually, but they would terrify you today if you could see them. The creatures exist in the ancient cave systems and they will one day come to the surface, but by then the people of Earth will have matured into a species so that the creatures from Earth can also live peacefully with you. Not all the creatures of the Atlantians were brutal and animalistic, but we will describe that in detail in the series on Atlantis.