Tolkianus

Giants were massive beings that are often associated with the Mountains of Middle Earth. Stories say that they were responsible for making the White Mountains. They also may dwell in the Misty Mountains. Gandalf uses them in the stories he tells the hobbits of the Shire. Their age and origin is unknown, but according to Gondorian legends they built the White Mountains in order to stop Men’s expansion from the coast, making them one of the older races in Middle Earth. A giant by the name of Tarlang fell carrying his stones and died while building the mountains. Tarlang’s Neck became a pass in the mountains, Dol Tarlang, his head, became a large hill where he died. Giants were first mentioned contemporaneously in The Hobbit when Thorin’s Company is passing through the Misty Mountains. Stone-Giants were throwing rocks at each other in a form of game or combat. The rocks they were throwing adding to the destruction of a storm that was also occurring. What are the giants? Well they could be very elusive creatures in the Mountains and aren’t mentioned much due to this. They could be the personification of nature, as the shaking mountains. They could be used only as stories for the natural structures of the world. Perhaps it was one of Tolkien’s inventions that he never elaborated on. It’s a giant question.

“When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. Then came a wind and a rain, and the wind whipped the rain and the hail about in every direction, so that an overhanging rock was no protection at all. Soon they were getting drenched and their ponies were standing with their heads down and their tails between their legs, and some of them were whinnying with fright. They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountainsides.

‘This won’t do at all!” said Thorin. ‘If we don’t get blown off, or drowned, or struck by lightning, we shall be picked up by some giant and kicked sky-high for a football.’”