GIANTS OF THE PAST

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10711, 5 November 1912, Page 7

GIANTS OF THE PAST

Fraulein Brunnhikle, who has just arrived in England from Berlin, is said to be tho tallest girl in the world. She i s 7ft llin high, 18 yeans of agc\, and weighs 20 stone, yet slio would bo only a pigmy compared with other giants and giantesses who have figured in tho world's history. Thomas Corenlio relates that -.it Triolo, a castle in Upper Calabria, in an underground temple, was discovered a skeleton 18ft long, with head 24ft ■ long, each tooth weighing over an ounce. Tiie bones of the sloleton weighed over 3ewt, "In tho seventeenth, century there was exhibited, at tho sign of the Catherine Wheel, in South wark Fair, "a. GyaJit or 'Miracle of Nature," who was described in the playbills ;is "that so much ■admired young man, a.getl nineteen years last June (163-t). "Born in Ireland, of such n prodigious height and highness." and every way proportionable, the liko hath not been seen, since the memory of man. Ho bath heen seven 1 times shown at Court, and His Majesty was pleased to walk under his arm, and he Is grown very much since—he now reaches ten foot and a half. Fathoms near eight foot, spans fifteen inches, and is believed to be n s big as one of gyants in Guild Hall." Abo<>t the same time there was on exhibition it the Golden Ball, at Charing Cross, a "giant, lately arrived from Holland; being the tallest person that ever was seen there- before; being about eight' feet high and between 27 ami 28 years of age; the son of a clergyman, and was tarn in Finland." ' .;■■■.* One of thesigiits of BartholomewFair in the. early part of the eighteenth century was "a tall Englishman, eight foot high, and. but 17 y<m-»> of age." In tho first year of the eirdiij teonth century there was also oxbdtufc- j e« at tho Sun Tavern in Queen Street, Cheapside, "a. wonderful and strange | Englishman, who is seven foet four j inches and a half in height, being not j ms yet 20 years of age until November, | 1701. His limbs are all proportionate j to his tallness and years of growth." j i NEARLY TWELVE FEET HIGH. i Classical lore has many records of j giants. The. Greeks described Ores- | tes as taing 11-Jft in height. Pliny says that the tallest man of his age was Gabara, who was f)ft Oin in heiglit. He was brought From Arabia in the reign of Claudius. Maxunus the Em"pero'r -was Bft 6m,.„in height, -and is said to have worn his wife's bracelet as a ring upon his thumb. Hercules was small compared with these- men;; as he is said to have- been only 7ft High. Funnam, a Scot, who lived in the time- of Eugene 11,, King of Scotland, measured 1 lift, and Jacob le Maire, in his voyage to the Str.nts of Magellan, reports that on December 17th, 161 o, they found at Port l>- , sire several graves containing skel' 1 - ! tons 10ft and 11ft long. The Chevalier Seory, in hi?, voyage to the Peak jof Tenerifle, reported the discovery in one of the sepulchre cavern.* of mounhiin of the body of a 18ft long, with 80 teeth in the head.