Many stories have already been told about the most important giants. They reappear in many of the later myths and fairy-tales, and manifest, after the introduction of Christianity, a peculiar dislike to the sound of church bells and the singing of the monks and nuns.
The giant in love.
The Scandinavians relate, in this connection, that in the days of Olaf the Saint a giant called Senjemand, who dwelt on the Island of Senjen, was greatly incensed because a nun on the Island of Grypto daily sang her morning hymn. The sound of this singing troubled his daydreams, for he had fallen in love with a beautiful maiden called Juternajesta, and was trying to gain courage to propose to her. When he made his halting request, however, the fair damsel scornfully rejected him, declaring that he was far too old and ugly to suit her taste.
“Miserable Senjemand—ugly and gray!
Thou win the maid of Kvedfiord!
No—a churl thou art and shalt ever remain.”
Ballad (Brace’s tr.).
TORGHATTEN, NORWAY.
In his anger at being thus scornfully refused, the giant swore vengeance, and soon after he shot a great stone arrow from his bow at the maiden, who dwelt eighty miles away. Her lover, Torge, also a giant, seeing her peril and wishing to protect her, flung his hat at the speeding arrow. This hat was a thousand feet high and proportionately broad and thick, but a collision with it only spent the force of the arrow, which, piercing the giant’s headgear, fell short of its aim. Senjemand, seeing he had failed, and fearing the wrath of Torge, mounted his steed and prepared to ride away as quickly as possible; but the sun, rising above the horizon just then, turned him into stone, as well as the arrow and Torge’s hat, which is now known as the Torghatten mountain. The people still point out the stone arrow,—a huge obelisk,—the hole in the mountain, which is 289 feet high and 88 feet wide, and the horseman on Senjen Island, apparently riding a colossal steed and drawing the folds of his wide cavalry cloak closely about him. As for the nun whose singing had so disturbed Senjemand that he could not propose properly, she was petrified too, and never troubled any one with her psalmody again.