“The giants at Guildhall . . .
. . . . . .
Where they have had a place to them assigned
At public meetings, now time out of mind.”
The last appearance of the giants in a procession was in 1837, when they graced the Lord Mayor’s Show.
The legends of the City Giants were two in number. The first related how Brutus, one of the Trojan heroes, wandering after the Fall of Troy, like Æneas, came to Britain, which he found full of giants. He fought with these giants and destroyed them all except two, named Gog and Magog, whom he brought to his new City of London and chained to the palace gates. Another legend relates how Corineus, brother of Brutus, fought the giants Gog and Magog, and, being himself stronger than his unwieldy antagonists, threw them headlong into the sea. The two giants of Guildhall, according to this legend, were Corineus and Gogmagog. The names of Gog and Magog were certainly taken either from Ezekiel or the Book of Revelation, and were applied to the giants after Corineus had been forgotten, as the names of princes over an infidel people: they were represented, not as tutelary giants, but as conquered giants. It will be observed that one is represented as a Roman, with helmet and shield, sword, spear, and armour, while the other is apparelled, after the artist’s imagination, as an ancient Briton.
They were originally made of wicker-work; after the Great Fire, which destroyed them, they were reconstructed of the same materials, but in 1707 they were made of wood, as we now see them.