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111-623: A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore. Giant ( s ) or The Giant ( s ) may also refer to: Giant Fairy tales such as Jack the Giant Killer have formed the modern perception of giants as dimwitted and violent ogres , sometimes said to eat humans, while other giants tend to eat livestock. In more recent portrayals, like those of Jonathan Swift and Roald Dahl , some giants are both intelligent and friendly. Giants appear many times in folklore and myths. Representing

222-558: A measles epidemic in 1713. On July 5, 1715, Mather married widow Lydia Lee George . Her daughter Katherine, wife of Nathan Howell, became a widow shortly after Lydia married Mather and she came to live with the newly married couple. Also living in the Mather household at that time were Mather's children Abigal (21), Hannah (18), Elizabeth (11), and Samuel (9). Initially, Mather wrote in his journal how lovely he found his wife and how much he enjoyed their discussions about scripture. Within

333-627: A "pesthouse". In 1716, Onesimus , one of Mather's slaves, explained to Mather how he had been inoculated as a child in Africa . Mather was fascinated by the idea. By July 1716, he had read an endorsement of inoculation by Dr Emanuel Timonius of Constantinople in the Philosophical Transactions . Mather then declared, in a letter to Dr John Woodward of Gresham College in London, that he planned to press Boston's doctors to adopt

444-607: A Horse, addressed himself to the People, partly to declare that [Burroughs] was no ordained Minister, partly to possess the People of his guilt, saying that the devil often had been transformed into the Angel of Light. And this did somewhat appease the People, and the Executions went on. As public discontent with the witch trials grew in the summer of 1692, threatening civil unrest, the conservative Cotton Mather felt compelled to defend

555-535: A better vehicle for preserving the Puritan orthodoxy in New England. In 1718, Cotton convinced Boston-born British businessman Elihu Yale to make a charitable gift sufficient to ensure the school's survival. It was also Mather who suggested that the school change its name to Yale College after it accepted that donation. Cotton Mather sought the presidency of Harvard again after Leverett's death in 1724, but

666-443: A channel, until they reached the village of Akkrum , where they had an argument and each went his own way, thus splitting the channel into two separate waterways. Others threw up hills, or became hills themselves when they died on the spot. In several legends, giants were evil beings that threatened, robbed and killed travellers or locals; such as Ellert and Brammert , in the province of Drenthe . Medieval chivalry romances such as

777-581: A commentary and interpretation of the Christian Bible in light of "all of the Learning in the World". Mather, who continued to work on it for many years, sought to incorporate into his reading of Scripture the new scientific knowledge and theories, including geography , heliocentrism , atomism , and Newtonianism . According to Silverman, the project "looks forward to Mather's becoming probably

888-667: A conflict with the Olympian gods called the Gigantomachy (Γιγαντομαχία) when Gaia had them attack Mount Olympus . This battle was eventually settled when the hero Heracles decided to help the Olympians. The Greeks believed some of them, like Enceladus , to lie buried from that time under the earth and that their tormented quivers resulted in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions . Herodotus in Book 1, Chapter 68, describes how

999-577: A cut in the skin with exudate from a patient with a relatively mild case of smallpox ( variola ), to bring about a manageable and recoverable infection that would provide later immunity. By the beginning of the 18th century, the Royal Society in England was discussing the practice of inoculation, and the smallpox epidemic in 1713 spurred further interest. It was not until 1721, however, that England recorded its first case of inoculation. Smallpox

1110-405: A danger of making the giants trip and die, so they offered sacrifices to that plant. There are tales of giants in the northern Chilean port town of Caldera telling of giants who play with ships moving them from one port to another. Tales of the same area also tells of giants who are able to crush humans with their feet and when laying down to sleep being so long as to reach from the mountains to

1221-437: A few years of their marriage, Lydia was subject to rages which left Mather humiliated and depressed. They clashed over Mather's piety and his mishandling of Nathan Howell's estate. He began to call her deranged. She left him for ten days, returning when she learned that Mather's son Increase was lost at sea. Lydia nursed him through illnesses, the last of which lasted five weeks and ended with his death on February 15, 1728. Of

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1332-621: A general pardon, bringing the witch trials to an end. The last major events in Mather's involvement with witchcraft were his interactions with Mercy Short in December 1692 and Margaret Rule in September 1693. Mather appears to have remained convinced that genuine witches had been executed in Salem and he never publicly expressed regrets over his role in those events. Robert Calef , an otherwise obscure Boston merchant, published More Wonders of

1443-460: A half, he is the youngest student ever admitted to that institution. At around this time, Cotton began to be afflicted by stuttering , a speech disorder that he would struggle to overcome throughout the rest of his life. Bullied by the older students and fearing that his stutter would make him unsuitable as a preacher, Cotton withdrew temporarily from the college, continuing his education at home. He also took an interest in medicine and considered

1554-622: A list of grievances that the declaration attributed to the deposed officials. The authorship of that document is uncertain: it was not signed by Mather or any other clergymen, and Puritans frowned upon the clergy being seen to play too direct and personal a hand in political affairs. That day, Mather probably read the Declaration to a crowd gathered in front of the Boston Town House . In July, Andros, Randolph, Joseph Dudley , and other officials who had been deposed and arrested in

1665-560: A local myth has a local hill resembling a giant named as The Sleeping Giant . Folklore says the giant will awaken only if a specific musical instrument is played near the hill. Giants are also prominent in Welsh folklore . Many giants in English folklore were noted for their stupidity. A giant who had quarrelled with the Mayor of Shrewsbury went to bury the city with dirt; however, he met

1776-429: A man and a woman, were traversing the fjord near Drangey Island with their cow when they were surprised by the bright rays of daybreak. As a result of exposure to daylight, all three were turned into stone. Drangey represents the cow and Kerling (supposedly the female giant, the name means "old hag") is to the south of it. Karl (the male giant) was to the north of the island, but he disappeared long ago. A bergrisi –

1887-548: A means of preventing smallpox contagion, which he learned about from an African-American slave who he owned, Onesimus . He dispatched many reports on scientific matters to the Royal Society of London , which elected him as a fellow in 1713. Mather's promotion of inoculation against smallpox caused violent controversy in Boston during the outbreak of 1721. Scientist and United States Founding Father Benjamin Franklin , who as

1998-640: A passage of his Genealogies of the Pagan Gods to purported archeological discoveries in Sicily that he thought might be evidence of the historicity of The Odyssey 's Polyphemus . Rabelais created a wholly "fabricated giantology" for his 16th-century Gargantua and Pantagruel . Massive bones found in 1613 in France were initially assigned to Teutobochus but the examinations of them by various physicians and their publication of diverging conclusions about

2109-520: A race of giant men created in one of the previous solar eras . They are credited with the construction of Teotihuacan . Giants are rough but generally righteous characters of formidable strength living in the hills of the Basque Country . Giants stand for the Basque people reluctant to convert to Christianity who decide to stick to the old lifestyle and customs in the forest. Sometimes they hold

2220-575: A shoemaker, carrying shoes to repair, and the shoemaker convinced the giant that he had worn out all the shoes coming from Shrewsbury , and so it was too far to travel. Other English stories told of how giants threw stones at each other, which was used to explain many great stones on the landscape. Giants figure in folklore and fairy tales, such as Jack the Giant Killer , The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body , Nix Nought Nothing , Robin Hood and

2331-421: A statement, drawn up by Cotton Mather and presented to Governor Phips and his council a few days later, entitled The Return of Several Ministers . In that document, Mather criticized the court's reliance on spectral evidence and recommended that it adopt a more cautious procedure. However, he ended the document with a statement defending the continued prosecution of witchcraft according to the "Direction given by

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2442-444: A statue of Jupiter, typically on horseback, defeating or trampling down a giant, often depicted as a snake. They are restricted to the area of south-western Germany, western Switzerland, French Jura, and Alsace. In folklore from all over Europe, giants were believed to have built the remains of previous civilizations. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus thought giants had a hand in the creation of megalithic monuments. Similarly,

2553-797: A time when the English Parliament was threatening to repeal the Massachusetts Charter. With the Mathers' support, Dudley was appointed governor by the Crown and returned to Boston in 1702. Contrary to the promises that he had made to the Mathers, Governor Dudley proved a divisive and high-handed executive, reserving his patronage for a small circle composed of transatlantic merchants, Anglicans, and religious liberals such as Thomas Brattle , Benjamin Colman, and John Leverett . In

2664-653: A young Bostonian had opposed the old Puritan order represented by Mather and participated in the anti-inoculation campaign, later described Mather's book Bonifacius , or Essays to Do Good (1710) as a major influence on his life. Cotton Mather was born in 1663 in the city of Boston, the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony , to the Rev. Increase Mather and his wife Maria née Cotton. His grandfathers were Richard Mather and John Cotton , both of them prominent Puritan ministers who had played major roles in

2775-470: Is noted for his Magnalia Christi Americana (1702). Personally and intellectually committed to the waning social and religious orders in New England, Cotton Mather unsuccessfully sought the presidency of Harvard College . After 1702, Cotton Mather clashed with Joseph Dudley , the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay , whom Mather attempted unsuccessfully to drive out of power. Mather championed

2886-399: Is now a general agreement that his beliefs were very typical of the period, that he acted as a moderating force in the context of the trials, and that he never directly participated in the proceedings. He advised the judges against using spectral evidence and offered recommendations to proceed with caution lest innocent people come to harm. In the end, Mather's role in the witchcraft episode

2997-471: Is still overshadowed by the specter of Salem witchcraft." Cotton Mather was an extremely prolific writer, producing 388 different books and pamphlets during his lifetime. His most widely distributed work was Magnalia Christi Americana (which may be translated as "The Glorious Works of Christ in America"), subtitled "The ecclesiastical history of New England, from its first planting in the year 1620 unto

3108-496: The Hindu reckoning of time. According to Jainism , there was a time when giants walked upon this earth. Jain cosmology divides the worldly cycle of time into two parts or half-cycles, avasarpani (age of descending purity) and ascending ( utsarpani ). According to Jain texts , the height of Rishabhanatha , first tirthankara of the present half-cycle of time ( avasarpani ) was 500 dhanusa (longbow). In avasarpani , as

3219-515: The Magnalia he also attempts to transcend the religious separatism of the old Puritan settlers, reflecting Mather's more ecumenical and cosmopolitan embrace of a Transatlantic Protestant Christianity that included, in addition to Mather's own Congregationalists , also Presbyterians , Baptists , and low church Anglicans . In 1693 Mather also began work on a grand intellectual project that he titled Biblia Americana , which sought to provide

3330-573: The Old English poem The Seafarer speaks of the high stone walls that were the work of giants. Natural geologic features such as the massive basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Northern Ireland were attributed to construction by giants. In the Netherlands, giants are often associated with creating or forming the landscape. For instance, two giants are said to have dug

3441-476: The Selectmen , powerless to stop it, "severely limited the length of time funeral bells could toll." As one response, legislators delegated a thousand pounds from the treasury to help the people who, under these conditions, could no longer support their families. On June 6, 1721, Mather sent an abstract of reports on inoculation by Timonius and Jacobus Pylarinus to local physicians, urging them to consult about

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3552-668: The Septuagint , the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the 2nd–1st-centuries BCE Dead Sea Scrolls give Goliath's height as four cubits and one span (possibly 216–258 centimetres (7 ft 1 in – 8 ft 6 in)). For comparison, the Anakites are described as making the Israelites seem like grasshoppers. See also Gibborim . Josephus also described the Amorites as giants in his Antiquities of

3663-716: The Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains . After giving birth to a disfigured child, the giants treated the child so poorly that the Great Spirit responded by making the land hot and desolate and allowing enemies to conquer the giants. Only two giants survived: Paiute and his wife, both of whose skin became brown from eternally living in the hot desert. Several Jupiter-Giant-Columns have been found in Germania Superior . These were crowned with

3774-613: The Spartans uncovered in Tegea the body of Orestes , which was seven cubits long ⁠ ⁠—  approximately 3.73   m, or about 12   feet 3   inches. In his book The Comparison of Romulus with Theseus , Plutarch describes how the Athenians uncovered the body of Theseus , which was "of more than ordinary size." The kneecaps of Ajax were exactly the size of a discus for the boy's pentathlon , wrote Pausanias . A boy's discus

3885-583: The Titanomachy . The Hecatoncheires are giants that have 100 arms and 50 heads who were also the children of Gaia and Uranus. Other known giant races in Greek mythology include the six-armed Gegeines , the northern Hyperboreans , and the cannibalistic Laestrygonians . There are accounts stating humans grew to the size of giants during the Satya Yuga , the first of the four cyclical ages (yugas) in

3996-656: The "Haunted Children" by prayer and fasting. He also took in the eldest Goodwin child, Martha, into his own home, where she lived for several weeks. Eventually, the afflictions ceased and Martha was admitted into Mather's church. The publication of Mather's Memorable Providences attracted attention on both sides of the Atlantic, including from the eminent English Puritan Richard Baxter . In his book, Mather argued that since there are witches and devils, there are "immortal souls". He also claimed that witches appear spectrally as themselves. He opposed any natural explanations for

4107-881: The American people with enthusiasm...Paul and his blue ox Babe are supposed to have altered the appearance of the American continent; the animal's hoof prints became the lake beds of the Northwest and from its drinking trough spilled the Mississippi River ." Fossilized remains of ancient mammals and reptiles common to the Sivalik Hills of India may have influenced aspects of the Mahābhārata that tell of battles in which "hundreds of mighty, and sometimes gigantic, heroes, horses, and war elephants are said to have died." Claudine Cohen , in her 2002 book The Fate of

4218-518: The Boston revolt were summoned to London to answer the complaints against them. The administration of Massachusetts was temporarily assumed by Simon Bradstreet , whose rule proved weak and contentious. In 1691, the government of King William and Queen Mary issued a new Massachusetts Charter . This charter united the Massachusetts Bay Colony with Plymouth Colony into the new Province of Massachusetts Bay . Rather than restoring

4329-580: The Country in those matters, taking home one of the Children, and managing such Intreagues with that Child, and after printing such an account of the whole, in his Memorable Providences , as conduced much to the kindling of those Flames, that in Sir William 's time threatened the devouring of this Country. Similar views, on Mather's responsibility for the climate of hysteria over witchcraft that led to

4440-484: The Dutch Prince William of Orange . News of the events in London greatly emboldened the opposition in Boston to Governor Andros, finally precipitating the 1689 Boston revolt . Cotton Mather, then aged twenty-six, was one of the Puritan ministers who guided resistance in Boston to Andros's regime. Early in 1689, Randolph had a warrant issued for Cotton Mather's arrest on a charge of "scandalous libel", but

4551-568: The Hebrew Bible, but left untranslated in others. According to Genesis 7:23 , the Nephilim were destroyed in the Flood, but Nephilim are reported after the Flood, including: The Book of Numbers includes the discouraging report by the spies sent by Moses into Canaan : "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are. (...) All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw

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4662-698: The Inhabitants of the Earth, and of the Sea; for the Devil is come down unto you, having great Wrath; because he knoweth, that he hath but a short time." In the sermon, Mather claimed that the witches "have associated themselves to do no less a thing than to destroy the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, in these parts of the World." Although he did not intervene in any of the trials, there are some testimonies that Mather

4773-494: The Invisible World in 1700, bitterly attacking Cotton Mather over his role in the events of 1692. In the words of 20th-century historian Samuel Eliot Morison , "Robert Calef tied a tin can to Cotton Mather which has rattled and banged through the pages of superficial and popular historians". Intellectual historian Reiner Smolinski, an expert on the writings of Cotton Mather, found it "deplorable that Mather's reputation

4884-453: The Jews , circa 93   CE, indicating that some sort of fossils may have been on display at that time: "For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to

4995-590: The Laws of God, and the wholesome Statues of the English Nation". Robert Calef would later criticize Mather's intervention in The Return of Several Ministers as "perfectly ambidexter, giving a great or greater encouragement to proceed in those dark methods, than cautions against them." On August 4, Cotton Mather preached a sermon before his North Church congregation on the text of Revelation 12:12: "Woe to

5106-518: The Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and chief judge of the Salem witch trials. Mather's book constitutes the most detailed written defense of the conduct of those trials. Mather's role in drumming up and sustaining the witch hysteria behind those proceedings was denounced by Robert Calef in his book More Wonders of the Invisible World , published in 1700. In the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne called Mather "the chief agent of

5217-525: The Mammoth , argued that the history of human interaction with fossil bones of prehistoric megafauna was heavily influenced by giant lore. Per Cohen, the proto-scientific study of giants appears in several phases of human history: Herotodus reported that the remains of Orestes were found in Tegea ; Pliny described a giant's skeleton found in Crete after an earthquake, and seemed to refer to evolution as

5328-409: The Mathers represented, as well as upon the local autonomy of Massachusetts. The colonists were particularly outraged when Andros declared that all grants of land made in the name of the old Massachusetts Bay Company were invalid, forcing them to apply and pay for new royal patents on land that they already occupied or face eviction. In April 1687, Increase Mather sailed to London , where he remained for

5439-463: The Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." The Book of Joshua , describing the actual conquest of Canaan in a later generation, makes reference to such people living there in (Joshua 14:12–15 and Joshua 15:13–14). The Bible also tells of Gog and Magog , who later entered European folklore, and of

5550-800: The Prince of Aragon , Young Ronald , and Paul Bunyan . Ogres are humanoid creatures, sometimes of gigantic stature, that occur in various sorts of European folklore. Rübezahl , is a kind giant from German folklore who lived in the Giant Mountains , along with the Bergmönch , a giant mountain spirit. Antero Vipunen is a giant shaman that appears in the Kalevala , meeting the epic hero Väinämöinen to teach him creation spells. Cotton Mather Cotton Mather FRS ( / ˈ m æ ð ər / ; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728)

5661-460: The Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth . The practice of smallpox inoculation (as distinguished from to the later practice of vaccination ) was developed possibly in 8th-century India or 10th-century China and by the 17th-century had reached Turkey. It was also practiced in western Africa, but it is not known when it started there. Inoculation or, rather, variolation , involved infecting a person via

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5772-510: The Salem trials, were repeated by later commentators, such as the politician and historian Charles W. Upham in the 19th century. When the accusations of witchcraft arose in Salem Village in 1692, Cotton Mather was incapacitated by a serious illness, which he attributed to overwork. He suggested that the afflicted girls be separated and offered to take six of them into his home, as he had done previously with Martha Goodwin. That offer

5883-687: The Spanish Amadís de Gaula feature giants as antagonists, or, rarely, as allies. This is parodied famously in Cervantes' Don Quixote , when the title character attacks a windmill, believing it to be a giant. This is the source of the phrase tilting at windmills . Tales of combat with giants were a common feature in the folklore of the British Isles . Celtic giants also figure in Breton and Arthurian romances . In Kinloch Rannoch ,

5994-426: The bones kicked off a "pamphlet war" between anatomists and surgeons of the day. The discovery of the so-called Claverack Giant in colonial New York triggered giantological investigations by two important early American intellectuals, Cotton Mather and Edward Taylor . Genesis tells of the Nephilim before and after Noah's Flood . The word Nephilim is loosely translated as giants in some translations of

6105-446: The chief god, is the great-grandson of the jötunn Ymir . Norse mythology also holds that the entire world of men was created from the flesh of Ymir, a giant of cosmic proportions whose name is considered by some scholars to share a root with Yama of Indo-Iranian mythology. Trolls are beings that are sometimes very large. The name troll is applied to jötnar . An old Icelandic legend says that two night-prowling giants,

6216-430: The children that Mather had with Abigail and Elizabeth, the only children to survive him were Hannah and Samuel. He did not have any children with Lydia. On May 14, 1686, ten days after Cotton Mather's marriage to Abigail Phillips, Edward Randolph disembarked in Boston bearing letters patent from King James II of England that revoked the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company and commissioned Randolph to reorganize

6327-429: The colonial government. James's intention was to curb Massachusetts's religious separatism by incorporating the colony it into a larger Dominion of New England , without an elected legislature and under a governor who would serve at the pleasure of the Crown. Later that year, the King appointed Sir Edmund Andros as governor of that new Dominion. This was a direct attack upon the Puritan religious and social orders that

6438-453: The context of Queen Anne's War (1702–1713), Cotton Mather preached and published against Governor Dudley, whom Mather accused of corruption and misgovernment. Mather sought unsuccessfully to have Dudley replaced by Sir Charles Hobby . Outmaneuvered by Dudley, this political rivalry left Mather increasingly isolated at a time when Massachusetts society was steadily moving away from the Puritan tradition that Mather represented. Cotton Mather

6549-497: The cultural map, recall such later American works as Moby-Dick (to which it has been compared), its effort to rejoin provincial America to the mainstream of English culture recalls rather The Waste Land . Genuinely Anglo-American in outlook, the book projects a New England which is ultimately an enlarged version of Cotton Mather himself, a pious citizen of "The Metropolis of the whole English America". Silverman argues that, although Mather glorifies New England's Puritan past, in

6660-499: The cycle moves ahead, height of all humans and animals decreases. The following table depicts the six aras of avasarpini – In Norse mythology , the jötnar (cognate with Old English : eotenas and English: ettin ) are often opposed to the gods. While often translated as "giants", most are described as being roughly human-sized. Some are portrayed as huge, such as some frost giants ( hrímþursar ), fire giants ( eldjötnar ), and mountain giants ( bergrisar ). The jötnar are

6771-407: The death in 1701 of acting governor William Stoughton , Dudley began enlisting support in London to procure appointment as the new governor of Massachusetts. Although the Mathers (to whom he was related by marriage), continued to resent Dudley's role in the Andros administration, they eventually came around to the view that Dudley would now be preferable as governor to the available alternatives, at

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6882-450: The disease was spreading at an alarming rate. As a new wave of smallpox hit the area and continued to spread, many residents fled to outlying rural settlements. The combination of exodus, quarantine, and outside traders' fears disrupted business in the capital of the Bay Colony for weeks. Guards were stationed at the House of Representatives to keep Bostonians from entering without special permission. The death toll reached 101 in September, and

6993-412: The establishment and growth of the Massachusetts colony. Richard Mather was a graduate of the University of Oxford and John Cotton a graduate of the University of Cambridge . Increase Mather was a graduate of Harvard College and the Trinity College Dublin , and served as the minister of Boston's original North Church (not to be confused with the Anglican Old North Church of Paul Revere fame). This

7104-415: The events in Salem, and it would remain admissible until 1712. There was, however, debate among experts as to how much weight should be given to such testimonies. On June 10, 1692, Bridget Bishop , the thrice-married owner of an unlicensed tavern, was hanged after being convicted and sentenced by the Court of Oyer and Terminer, based largely on spectral evidence. A group of twelve Puritan ministers issued

7215-427: The events surrounding the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693. As a consequence of those trials, nineteen people were executed by hanging for practicing witchcraft and one was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea before the court. Although Mather had no official role in the legal proceedings, he wrote the book Wonders of the Invisible World , which appeared in 1693 with the endorsement of William Stoughton ,

7326-420: The famous battle between David and the Philistine Goliath . While Goliath is often portrayed as a giant in retellings of the Biblical narrative, he appears to be significantly smaller than other giants, biblical or otherwise. The Masoretic Text version of the Book of Samuel gives his height as six cubits and one span (possibly 313–372 centimetres (10 ft 3 in – 12 ft 2 in)), while

7437-412: The fellows offered the position to the Rev. Joseph Sewall (son of Judge Samuel Sewall , who had repented publicly for his role in the Salem witch trials). When Sewall turned it down, Mather once again hoped that he might get the appointment. Instead, the fellows offered it to one of its own number, the Rev. Benjamin Coleman, an old rival of Mather. When Coleman refused it, the presidency went finally to

7548-436: The first Puritan missionary to the Native Americans, to Sir William Phips , the incumbent governor of Massachusetts at the time that Mather began writing), plus dozens of brief biographical sketches, including those of Hannah Duston and Hannah Swarton . According to Kenneth Silverman , an expert on early American literature and Cotton Mather's biographer, If the epic ambitions of Magnalia , its attempt to put American on

7659-415: The fits, believed that people who confessed to using witchcraft were sane, and warned against all magical practices due to their diabolical connections. Mather's contemporary Robert Calef would later accuse Mather of laying the groundwork, with his Memorable Providences , for the witchcraft hysteria that gripped Salem three years later: Mr Cotton Mather, was the most active and forward of any Minister in

7770-469: The forests"), Sanson (variation of the biblical Samson ), Errolan (based on the Frankish army general Roland who fell dead at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass ) or even Tartalo (a one-eyed giant akin to the Greek Cyclops Polyphemus ). In Bulgarian mythology, giants called ispolini inhabited the Earth before modern humans. They lived in the mountains, fed on raw meat and often fought against dragons . Ispolini were afraid of blackberries which posed

7881-451: The full title of president (1692–1701). Increase was unwilling to move permanently to the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts , since his congregation in Boston was much larger than the Harvard student body, which at the time counted only a few dozen. Instructed by a committee of the Massachusetts General Assembly that the president of Harvard had to reside in Cambridge and preach to the students in person, Increase resigned in 1701 and

7992-472: The giants he was the bravest and most famous, opponent of all who raised their hand to become absolute ruler over the giants and heroes." Mount Nemrut is known to have received its name from an Armenian tradition in which Nimrod was killed by an arrow shot by Hayk during a massive battle between two rival armies of giants to the south-east of Lake Van . Aztec mythology features the Quinametzin ,

8103-512: The growing clamor against the Salem witch trials. At around the same time that the book began to circulate in manuscript form, Governor Phips decided to restrict greatly the use of spectral evidence, thus raising a high barrier against further convictions. The Court of Oyer and Terminer was dismissed on October 29. A new court convened in January 1693 to hear the remaining cases, almost all of which ended in acquittal. In May, Governor Phips issued

8214-583: The hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men." The Book of Enoch describes giants as the offspring of Watchers and women in 7:2. Hayk was known as the founder of the Armenian state. Hayk was part of a race of giants who helped construct the Tower of Babel . Ancient historian Movses Khorenatsi wrote, "Hayk was handsome and personable, with curly hair, sparkling eyes and strong arms. Among

8325-450: The human body enlarged to the point of being monstrous, giants evoke terror and remind humans of their body's frailty and mortality. They are often portrayed as monsters and antagonists, but there are exceptions. Some giants intermingle with humans in a friendly way and can even be part of human families with their offspring being portrayed as regular humans where they are often referred to as half-giants . Folklorists and historians examine

8436-408: The identification and conviction of all witches should be undertaken with the greatest caution and warned against the use of spectral evidence (i.e., testimony that the specter of the accused had tormented a victim) on the grounds that devils could assume the form of innocent and even virtuous people. Under English law , spectral evidence had been admissible in witchcraft trials for a century before

8547-441: The judges in the new court, John Richards , requested that Cotton Mather accompany him to Salem, but Mather refused due to his ill health. Instead, Mather wrote a long letter to Richards in which he gave his advice on the impending trials. In that letter, Mather states that witches guilty of the most grievous crimes should be executed, but that witches convicted of lesser offenses deserve more lenient punishment. He also wrote that

8658-533: The matter. He received no response. Next, Mather pleaded his case to Dr. Zabdiel Boylston , who tried the procedure on his youngest son and two slaves—one grown and one a boy. All recovered in about a week. Boylston inoculated seven more people by mid-July. The epidemic peaked in October 1721, with 411 deaths; by February 26, 1722, Boston was again free from smallpox. The total number of cases since April 1721 came to 5,889, with 844 deaths—more than three-quarters of all

8769-496: The mischief" at Salem. More recently historians have tended to downplay Mather's role in the events at Salem. According to Jan Stievermann, of the Heidelberg Center for American Studies , unlike some other ministers [Cotton Mather] never called for an end to the trials, and he afterwards wrote New England's official defense of the court's proceedings, the infamous Wonders of the Invisible World (1693). Still, there

8880-496: The most influential spokesman in New England for a rationalized, scientized Christianity." Mather could not find a publisher for the Biblia Americana , which remained in manuscript form during his lifetime. It is currently being edited in ten volumes, published by Mohr Siebeck under the direction of Reiner Smolinski and Jan Stievermann. As of 2023, seven of the ten volumes have appeared in print. In Massachusetts at

8991-483: The new Yale College as an intellectual bulwark of Puritanism in New England. He corresponded extensively with European intellectuals and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Glasgow in 1710. A promoter of the new experimental science in America, Cotton Mather carried out original research on plant hybridization . He also researched the variolation method of inoculation as

9102-626: The next four years, pleading with the Court for what he regarded as the interests of the Massachusetts colony. The birth of a male heir to King James in June 1688, which could have cemented a Roman Catholic dynasty in the English throne, triggered the so-called Glorious Revolution in which Parliament deposed James and gave the Crown jointly to his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband,

9213-512: The old Puritan rule, the Charter of 1691 mandated religious toleration for all non-Catholics and established a government led by a Crown-appointed governor. The first governor under the new charter was Sir William Phips , who was a member of the Mathers' church in Boston. Cotton Mather's reputation, in his own day as well as in the historiography and popular culture of subsequent generations, has been very adversely affected by his association with

9324-561: The origin of most of various monsters in Norse mythology (e.g. the Fenrisulfr ) and in the eventual battle of Ragnarök , the giants will storm Asgard and fight the gods until the world is destroyed. Even so, the gods themselves were related to the jötnar by many marriages and descent; there are also jötnar such as Ægir who have good relationships with the gods and bear little difference in status to them. Odin , often regarded as

9435-475: The politics of the Massachusetts colony. Despite Cotton's efforts, he never became quite as influential as his father. One of the most public displays of their strained relationship emerged during the Salem witch trials, which Increase Mather reportedly did not support. Cotton did surpass his father's output as a writer, producing nearly 400 works. Cotton Mather married Abigail Phillips, daughter of Colonel John Phillips of Charlestown , on May 4, 1686, when Cotton

9546-437: The possibility of pursuing a career as a physician rather than as a religious minister. Cotton eventually returned to Harvard and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1678, followed by a Master of Arts degree in 1681, the same year his father became Harvard President. At Harvard, Cotton studied Hebrew and the sciences. After completing his education, Cotton joined his father's church as assistant pastor. In 1685, Cotton

9657-524: The practice of inoculation should smallpox reach the colony again. By 1721, a whole generation of young Bostonians was vulnerable and memories of the last epidemic's horrors had by and large disappeared. Smallpox returned on April 22 of that year, when HMS Seahorse arrived from the West Indies carrying smallpox on board. Despite attempts to protect the town through quarantine, nine known cases of smallpox appeared in Boston by May 27, and by mid-June,

9768-478: The princess of Tololo Pampa. If a person manages to watch the giant while he works folklore says the person will be blessed with good luck for the rest of their life. In Greek mythology , the Gigantes (γίγαντες) were (according to the poet Hesiod ) the children of Uranus (Ουρανός) and Gaia (Γαία) (spirits of the sky and the earth) where some depictions had them with snake-like legs. They were involved in

9879-523: The process by which giants become human-size over time; and Saint Augustine mentions what is believed to have been the fossilized molar of an ancient Elephantidae in his City of God , in a passage reflecting on the nature and meaning of the Noahacian deluge. The academic consideration of giants continued through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and even the early modern period. Boccaccio devoted

9990-485: The responsible authorities. On September 2, 1692, after eleven people had been executed as witches, Cotton Mather wrote a letter to Judge Stoughton congratulating him on "extinguishing of as wonderful a piece of devilism as has been seen in the world". As the opposition to the witch trials was bringing them to a halt, Mather wrote Wonders of the Invisible World , a defense of the trials that carried Stoughton's official approval. Mather's Wonders did little to appease

10101-407: The role giants are assigned in regional geomythologies . For example, Fionn mac Cumhaill is said to have built the Giant's Causeway on the island of Ireland . Per a 1965 examination in an American studies journal, "It is generally admitted today that Paul Bunyan was a synthetic figure conceived by advertising men rather than the spontaneous product of the folk mind, yet he has been adopted by

10212-423: The sea. In some stories the giants are black humanoids or black bulls. In southern Chile there are stories of giants said to belong to certain volcanoes such as Calbuco and Osorno . The mythical city of Tololo Pampa in northern Chile is said to be guarded by a giant known by various names including; Pata Larga , Gigante Minero and Minero Gigante . The giant enters to the mountains to obtain riches to

10323-725: The secret of ancient techniques and wisdom unknown to the Christians, like in the legend of San Martin Txiki , while their most outstanding feature is their strength. It follows that in many legends all over the Basque territory the giants are held accountable for the creation of many stone formations, hills and ages-old megalithic structures ( dolmens , etc.), with similar explanations provided in different spots. However, giants show different variants and forms, they are most frequently referred to as jentilak and mairuak , while as individuals they can be represented as Basajaun ("the lord of

10434-467: The start of the 18th century, Joseph Dudley was a highly controversial figure, as he had participated actively in the government of Sir Edmund Andros in 1686–1689. Dudley was among those arrested in the revolt of 1689, and was later called to London to answer the charges against him brought by a committee of the colonists. However, Dudley was able to pursue a successful political career in Britain. Upon

10545-463: The successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros , the governor of New England appointed by King James II . Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, which he defended in the book Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively affected his historical reputation. As a historian of colonial New England, Mather

10656-592: The traditional protector of southwestern Iceland – appears as a supporter on the coat of arms of Iceland . According to Northern Paiute oral history, the Si-Te-Cah or Sai'i are a legendary tribe of red-haired cannibalistic giants, the remains of which were allegedly found in 1911 by guano miners in Nevada's Lovelock Cave . Furthermore, the Paiute creation story tells of "beautiful giants" who once lived between

10767-524: The warrant was overruled by Wait Winthrop . According to some sources, Cotton Mather escaped a second attempted arrest on April 18, 1689, the same day that the people of Boston took up arms against Andros. The young Mather may have authored, in whole or in part, the "Declaration of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Inhabitants of Boston and the Country Adjacent", which justified that uprising by

10878-496: The washerwoman's mother, Ann Glover , verbally insulted the Goodwin girl, who soon began to suffer from hysterical fits that later began to afflict also the three other Goodwin children. Glover was an Irish Catholic widow who could understand English but spoke only Gaelic . Interrogated by the magistrates, she admitted that she tormented her enemies by stroking certain images or dolls with her finger wetted with spittle. After she

10989-611: The year of Our Lord 1698. In seven books." Despite the Latin title, the work is written in English. Mather began working on it towards the end of 1693 and it was finally published in London in 1702. The work incorporates information that Mather put together from a variety of sources, such as letters, diaries, sermons, Harvard College records, personal conversations, and the manuscript histories composed by William Hubbard and William Bradford . The Magnalia includes about fifty biographies of eminent New Englanders (ranging from John Eliot ,

11100-456: Was ordained and assumed full responsibilities as co-pastor of the church. Father and son continued to share responsibility for the care of the congregation until the death of Increase in 1723. Cotton would die less than five years after his father, and was therefore throughout most of his career in the shadow of the respected and formidable Increase. When Increase Mather became president of Harvard in 1692, he exercised considerable influence on

11211-739: Was a Puritan clergyman and author in colonial New England , who wrote extensively on theological, historical, and scientific subjects. After being educated at Harvard College , he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House in Boston, Massachusetts , where he preached for the rest of his life. He has been referred to as the "first American Evangelical ". A major intellectual and public figure in English-speaking colonial America, Cotton Mather helped lead

11322-583: Was a fellow of Harvard College from 1690 to 1702, and at various times sat on its Board of Overseers . His father Increase had succeeded John Rogers as president of Harvard in 1684, first as acting president (1684–1686), later with the title of "rector" (1686–1692, during much of which period he was away from Massachusetts, pleading the Puritans' case before the Royal Court in London), and finally with

11433-610: Was a serious threat in colonial America, most devastating to Native Americans, but also to Anglo-American settlers. New England suffered smallpox epidemics in 1677, 1689–90, and 1702. It was highly contagious, and mortality could reach as high as 30 percent. Boston had been plagued by smallpox outbreaks in 1690 and 1702. During this era, public authorities in Massachusetts dealt with the threat primarily by means of quarantine. Incoming ships were quarantined in Boston Harbor , and any smallpox patients in town were held under guard or in

11544-585: Was about 12 cm (4.7 in) in diameter, while a normal adult patella is around 5 cm (2.0 in), suggesting Ajax may have been nearly 14   feet (over 4   m) tall. The Cyclopes are also compared to giants due to their huge size (e.g.   Polyphemus , son of Poseidon and Thoosa and nemesis of Odysseus in Homer 's The Odyssey ). The Elder Cyclopes were the children of Gaia and Uranus, and later made Zeus ' "master thunderbolt", Poseidon's trident, and Hades ' "helm of darkness", during

11655-433: Was not accepted. In May of that year, Sir William Phips , governor of the newly chartered Province of Massachusetts Bay , appointed a special "Court of Oyer and Terminer" to try the cases of witchcraft in Salem. The chief judge of that court was Phips's lieutenant governor, William Stoughton . Stoughton had close ties to the Mathers and had been recommended as Governor Phips's lieutenant by Increase Mather. Another of

11766-514: Was one of the two principal Congregationalist churches in the city, the other being the First Church established by John Winthrop . Cotton Mather was therefore born into one of the most influential and intellectually distinguished families in colonial New England and seemed destined to follow his father and grandfathers into the Puritan clergy. Cotton entered Harvard College, in the neighboring town of Cambridge , in 1674. Aged only eleven and

11877-483: Was present at the executions that were carried out in Salem on August 19. According to his Mather's contemporary critic Robert Calef, the crowd was disturbed by George Burroughs 's eloquent declarations of innocence from the scaffold and by his recitation of the Lord's Prayer , of which witches were commonly believed to be incapable. Calef claimed that, after Burroughs had been hanged, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon

11988-594: Was replaced by the Rev. Samuel Willard as acting president. Cotton Mather sought the presidency of Harvard, but in 1708 the fellows instead appointed a layman, John Leverett , who had the support of Governor Dudley. The Mathers disapproved of the increasing independence and liberalism of the Harvard faculty, which they regarded as laxity. Cotton Mather came to see the Collegiate School, which had moved in 1716 from Saybrook to New Haven, Connecticut , as

12099-400: Was sentenced to death for witchcraft, Mather visited her in prison and interrogated her through an interpreter. Before her execution, Glover warned that her death would not bring relief to the Goodwin children, as she was not the one responsible for their torments. Indeed, after Glover was hanged the children's afflictions increased. Mather documented these events and attempted to de-possess

12210-406: Was thus ambivalent and conflicted. In 1689, Mather published Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions , based on his study of events surrounding the affliction of the children of a Boston mason named John Goodwin. Those afflictions had begun after Goodwin's eldest daughter confronted a washerwoman whom she suspected of stealing some of the family's linen. In response to this,

12321-428: Was twenty-three and Abigail was not quite sixteen years old. They had eight children. Abigail died of smallpox in 1702, having previously suffered a miscarriage. He married widow Elizabeth Hubbard in 1703. Like his first marriage, he was happily married to a very religious and emotionally stable woman. They had six children. Elizabeth, the couple's newborn twins, and a two-year-old daughter, Jerusha, all succumbed to

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