134 NATURA^ HISTORY OF 



ABNOEMAL BACES OF MAN. 



GIANTS AND DWARFS. 



THERE were, in early antiquity, nations, tribes, and 

 families, existing in nearly every part of the earth, 

 whose origin and affinities appear so exceedingly ob- 

 scure, that they have been transferred from physicu 

 realities to poetical mythology ; and, under the name ^ 

 of Titans, ^Eooras, Hastikarnas, Danaras, Gins, Deeves, 

 Thyrsen, Dwarfs, Swergi, Elves, and Fairies, regarded 

 as personifications of phenomena in nature, although 

 the inverse may be assumed with more probability, 

 taking the pretended creations of mere fancy to be, in 

 their origin, derived from physical realities more or less 

 distorted. Such are the Giant and Dwarf races of 

 mythology, romance, and history, both sacred and pro- 

 fane.* They occur in the traditions of most nations ; 



* The extent of Giant legends is shown, from their 

 having no satisfactory interpretation, except in the Scythian 

 (Gothic) mythology ; yet they are interwoven in all the 

 earliest Greek mystical fables, without being intelligible to 

 them. It seems as if there did exist, in Asia Minor, a par- 

 ticular version on this subject for it is not a Greek my thus 

 which has served the Jewish fabricators of their pretended 



