⁂ In 1682, a giant 7 feet 7 inches was exhibited in Dublin. A Swede 8 feet 6 inches was in the body-guard of a king of Prussia. A human skeleton 8 feet 6 inches is preserved in the museum of Trinity College, Dublin.
Becanus says he had seen a man nearly 10 feet high, and a woman fully 10 feet. Gasper Bauhin speaks of a Swiss 8 feet in height. Del Rio says he saw a Piedmontes in 1572 more than 9 feet in stature. C.S.F. Warren, M.A., says (in Notes and Queries, August 14, 1875) that his father knew a lady 9 feet high; “her head touched the ceiling of a good-sized room.” Vanderbrook says he saw a black man, at Congo, 9 feet high.
Giant of Literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1783).
Giant’s Leap (Lam Goëmagot) or “Goëmagot’s Leap.” Now called Haw, near Plymouth. The legend is that Cori´neus (3 syl.) wrestled with Goëmagot, king of the Albion giants, heaved the monster on his shoulder, carried him to the top of a high rock, and cast him into the sea.
At the beginning of the encounter, Corineus and the giant, standing front to front, held each other strongly in their arms, and panted aloud for breath; but Goëmagot presently grasping Croineus[Croineus] with all his might, broke three of his ribs, two on the right side and one on his left. Corineus, highly enraged, roused up his whole strength, snatched up the giant, ran with him on his shoulders to the neighboring cliff, and heaved him into the sea.... The place where he fell is called Lam Goëmagot to this day.—Geoffrey, British History, i. 16 (1142).
Giaour [djow´.er]. Byron’s tale called The Giaour is supposed to be told by a Turkish fisherman who had been employed all the day in the gulf of Ægi´na, and landed his boat at night-fall on the Piræ´us, now called the harbor of Port Leonê. He was eye-witness of all the incidents, and in one of them a principal agent (see line 352: “I hear the sound of coming feet....”). The tale is this: Leilah, the beautiful concubine of the Caliph Hasson, falls in love with a giaour, flees from the seraglio, is overtaken by an emir, put to death, and cast into the sea. The giaour cleaves Hassan’s skull, flees for his life, and becomes a monk. Six years afterwards he tells his history to his father confessor on his death-bed, and prays him to “lay his body with the humblest dead, and not even to inscribe his name on his tomb.” Accordingly, he is called “the Giaour,” and is known by no other name (1813).
Giauha´re (4 syl.), daughter of the king of Saman´dal, the mightiest of the undersea empires. When her father was made captive by king Saleh, she emerged for safety to a desert island, where she met Bed´er, the young king of Persia, who proposed to make her his wife; but Griauharê “spat on him,” and changed him “into a white bird with red beak and red legs.” The bird was sold to a certain king, and, being disenchanted, resumed the human form. After several marvellous adventures, Beder again met the under-sea princess, proposed to her again, and she became his wife and queen of Persia.—Arabian Nights (“Beder and Griauharê”).
Gibbet, a foot-pad and a convict, who “left his country for his country’s good.” He piqued himself on being “the best-behaved man on the road.”
’Twas for the good of my country I should be abroad.—George Farquhar, The Beaux’ Stratagem, iii. 3 (1707).
I thought it rather odd ... and said to myself, as Gibbet said when he heard that Aimwell had gone to church, “That looks suspicious.”—James Smith.