And it is set down in the Written Leaves how later on they overcame through craft both of those gigantic sons of the Proud One, so that the seed of the earth-giants perished utterly from among the Mayas.
CHAPTER VII
OG, KING OF BASHAN
The Hebrew chroniclers tell us that the giants of their land were the children of the fallen angels who took to themselves wives from the beautiful daughters of men. When these huge beings had consumed the possessions of their neighbors, they began to devour even the human beings themselves; and from this horrible example men came to kill and eat birds, animals and fishes.
Of these terrific and wicked ones, merely to glance at whom made one's heart grow weak, the most celebrated was Og. His mother Enac was a daughter of Adam. Like all of his race he was by nature half mortal: for being part angel, part human, these monsters, after a very long life, found themselves with but half a body, the rest having withered away; and with the prospect of remaining forever in this uncomfortable state, they were wont either to plunge into the sea or to end this miserable half existence by means of a magic herb, the secret of which had been transmitted by their celestial ancestors. Og, however, was destined, in this as in other matters, for a different fate from that of his brethren.
When the wickedness and arrogance of the Cainites brought the Flood upon the earth, Noah, as commanded, gathered his family and the animals into the
ark he had built. All the rest of the miserable folk perished in the waters—with the single exception of the giant Og. The latter had persuaded Noah to save him by promising that he and his descendants would in return serve the family of Noah forever. But when they came to embark, it was discovered that the vessel was not large enough to accommodate this huge creature; so he was permitted to sit on top of the ark; and during those weary months when the waters covered the face of the earth, those within passed food to the giant through a hole in the roof.
There are, indeed, writers who declare that Og escaped because his stature was such that the deluge at its deepest reached only to his knees, he being accustomed to drink water direct from the clouds. In fact, Abba Saul avers: "I once hunted a stag which fled into the thigh-bone of a dead man. I pursued it and ran along three parasangs" (about eight miles!) "of the thigh-bone, yet had not yet reached its end"—and this bone proved to be a portion of Og's skeleton. In Moses' time, however, the giant's great iron-bedstead—"is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon?"—was a mere thirteen or fourteen feet long. Whatever his height, his breadth was half as great, instead of only one-third as in the normal man.
There was also one animal too large to enter the ark, the reëm or unicorn. It was therefore tied to the stern and "ran on behind." Undoubtedly this difficult mode of travelling proved fatal, since we have no authentic record of that beast since then.