Brewer's: Giant's Leap

(The). Lam-Goemagog. The legend is that Corineus (3 syl.), in his encounter with Goemagog, or Gomagog, slung him on his shoulders, carried him to the top of a neighbouring cliff, and heaved him into the sea. Ever since then the cliff has been called Lam-Goemagog. (ThomasBoreman: Gigantick History; 1741.)

SHERIDAN. (See above, Frank.)

SWANN (Anne Hanen) was 7 feet 11 1/2 inches in height. She was a native of Nova Scotia.

TOLLER (James) was 8 feet at the age of 24. He died in February, 1819.

Becanus asserts that he had seen a man nearly 10 feet high, and a woman fully 10 feet.

Gasper Bauhin speaks of a Swiss 8 feet in height.

Del Rio tells us he himself saw a Piedmontese in 1572 more than 9 feet in height.

C. F. S. Warren, M.A. (in Notes and Queries, August 14th, 1875), tells us that his father knew a lady 9 feet in height, and adds “her head touched the ceiling of a good-sized room.”

Vanderbrook says he saw at Congo a black man 9 feet high.

In the museum of Trinity College, Dublin, is a human skeleton 8 feet 6 inches in height.

Thomas Hall, of Willingham, was 3 feet 9 inches at the age of 3.

A giant was exhibited at Rouen in the early part of the eighteenth century 17 feet 10 inches (!) in height.

Gorapus, the surgeon, tells us of a Swedish giantess, who, at the age of 9, was over 10 feet in height.

Turner, the naturalist, tells us he saw in Brazil a giant 12 feet in height.

M. Thevet published, in 1575, an account of a South American giant, the skeleton of which he measured. It was 11 feet 5 inches.

SAM (Big). (See Mac Donald.)

Josephus speaks of a Jew 10 feet 2 inches.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Related Content