He mounts a horse of such size that it stands with its hind legs on a mountain in Bodok in Háromszék, while its fore-legs rest on another mountain in Bickfalú, and its head reaches far into Wallachia, where it grazes in a green clover-field.
On short outings he walks; on long journeys he goes on horseback; his steed is a tátos,[61] with whom he holds many conversations. On returning home from a long ride he throws his mace, weighing forty hundredweights, from a distance of forty miles (= about 180 English miles), which drops into the courtyard of the castle, and penetrating into the ground taps a subterranean spring.[62]
While the giant of the Germans lives during the flint-period, and uses gigantic stones and masses of rock as weapons, the Hungarian giant uses swords and maces of iron and copper, and also goes in for wrestling. He is not a cannibal. He is fond of a good supper and warm food, and is not a teetotaller. He always takes plenty of provisions on the journey.
Kozma has come across a tale, "Iron-made Peter," in which there figure six giants, each of whom is proficient in one thing or another. They bear names which characterise their special accomplishments. In English they would be as follows: Sharp-eye, Fast-runner, Far-thrower, Glutton, Drinker, Shiverer. The first is sitting on a mountain-peak reaching up to heaven's vault, and keeps on bowing in every direction, muttering "Which way shall I look? Is there nothing else to be seen? I have already seen everything in the world." The second is wandering about a vast plain, the boundaries of which cannot even be seen, and is moaning, evidently in great trouble. "Where shall I run? In which direction? No sooner do I start than I am at the end of this place." The third is seen sitting among huge pieces of rock, and crying, "Where shall I throw now? Which way? The whole world is covered by the stones I have thrown." The fourth is watching a bullock roasting, and continues yelling, "Oh, how ravenously hungry I am! What can I eat?" The fifth is rolling about on the sea-shore, roaring, "Oh, how thirsty I am! What will become of me? What can I drink? If I drain the ocean there will not be left anything for to-morrow!" The sixth is shivering on the top of a huge stack of wood all in a blaze, and exclaiming, "Oh, how cold I am! I am freezing."
The hero of the tale finds suitable employment for each of the giants. "Fast-runner" goes on an errand into the seven-times-seventh country, and returns in five minutes, although he goes to sleep on the road from the sleeping draught administered to him by a witch. "Sharp-eye" discovers him asleep; and "Far-thrower" knocks away the pillow from underneath his head, thus enabling him to return by the appointed time. "Glutton" consumes 366 fat oxen within six hours. "Drinker" empties during the same interval the contents of 366 casks, each holding 100 buckets of wine. "Shiverer" creeps into a furnace, which has been brought to, and kept in, a glowing heat for the last twenty-four years by twenty-four gipsies,[63] and by so doing lowers the temperature so that his mates, who have gone with him, are shivering with cold although they are wrapped up in thick rugs.[64]
The giants in northern regions live in six-storied diamond castles, or in golden fortresses which swivel round on a leg; more generally, however, they inhabit fortresses built by their own hands on the top of lofty mountains or steep rocks. In Székelyland the ruins of thirty-six such castles are existing, all of which are ascribed by the people to the giants. Some of their names show this; they are called the "Giant's Rock," the "Giant's Castle," the "Giant's Hill." In one case (Egyeskö in Csikszèk) they show the giants' table and bench in the rock. Sometimes, however, the castles are inhabited by fairies.
Tall mountain chains are sometimes said to be roads built by giants. Their names are "Attila's Track," "Devil's Ridge," &c. These roads were constructed by devils and magic cocks who were in the service of the giants. Hence also the name "Cocks' Ridge." In one case, however, near Száraz Ajta, the ridges were made by giants themselves,[65] who used silver-shared ploughs drawn by golden-haired bullocks for this purpose.
The giants left their homes when "the country was given away to mankind," or when "modern mankind commenced to exist." When the husbandmen appeared and began to till the lands in the valleys and lowlands the giants did not associate with men, but kept to their castles and only visited the impenetrable woods.
There is a tale which occurs in several localities about a giant's daughter who finds a husbandman, picks up him and his team and puts them into her apron and carries them off as toys, showing them to her father. The father exclaiming angrily, "Take him back, as he and his fellow-creatures are destined to be the lords of the globe," or "Their anger might cause our ruin," or "They will be our successors." We thus see that, while in the German tale the giant of Nideck-burg in Alsacia bids his daughter to take back the ploughman and his team for fear that by preventing his tilling the land the bread-supply might fail, in the Hungarian tales the giant openly acknowledges the superior power of the human race.[66]