from the kindly or mischievous aborigines of the land, with their special language, and religion, and costume. The giants appear in European folklore as Stone-Age heathen, shy of the conquering tribes of men, loathing their agriculture and the sound of their church-bells. The rude native's fear of the more civilized intruder in his land is well depicted in the tale of the giant's daughter, who found the boor ploughing his field and carried him home in her apron for a plaything — plough, and oxen, and all; but her mother bade her carry them back to where she found them, for, said she, they are of a people that can do the Huns much ill. The fact of the giant tribes bearing such historic names as Hun or Chud is significant, and Slavonic men have, perhaps, not yet forgotten that the dwarfs talked of in their legends were descended from the aborigines whom the Old-Prussians found in the land. Beyond a doubt the old Scandinavians are describing the ancient and ill-used Lapp population, once so widely spread over Northern Europe, when their sagas tell of the dwarfs, stunted and ugly, dressed in reindeer kirtle and coloured cap, cunning and cowardly, shy of intercourse even with friendly Norsemen, dwelling in caves or in the mound-like Lapland 'gamm,' armed only with arrows tipped with stone and bone, yet feared and hated by their conquerors for their fancied powers of witchcraft.[1] Moslem legend relates that the race of Gog and Magog (Yajuj and Majuj) are of tiny stature, but with ears like elephants; they are a numerous people, and ravaged the world; they dwell in the East, separated from Persia by a high mountain, with but one pass; and the nations their neighbours, when they heard of Alexander the Great (Dhû 'l-Karnain) traversing the world, paid tribute to him, and he made them a wall of bronze and iron, to keep in the nation of Gog and Magog.[2]
