CHAPTER 10

ANCIENT GIANTS IN GREECE

That next morning on the farm, Mimi asked Jack to allow Fitch to do the chores that day. She wanted Grandpa Jack to take a day to be with us. She didn’t mention what she had heard the night before between Darby and I, nor did she express what she had been feeling to Jack. She didn’t want to put the pain of the guilt on him. Besides, she knew Jack was in no shape to take on any extra remorse. He was carrying enough pain himself.

Grandpa Jack agreed and stayed up at the house for breakfast with us for the first time. Knowing Jack was waiting for us, Grandma Mimi sent Duchess to get us up. Duchess happily ran over to the door, scratched at it, and barked to be let in. Being such a short dog, she jumped up for the doorknob but couldn't reach it.

Finally, after much barking and jumping, Darby opened the door and bent down to give Duchess a scratch under her chin. Dutchess rolled over on her back for a little more attention which Darby quickly gave her. Then Darby did the unthinkable. She grabbed Duchess, put her on the bed, and let the dog find my face while I slept.

Immediately, Duchess licked my cheek. I'm not a morning person. Never was, never will be. This is especially true when I have spent the night before wrapped up in my own thoughts and find it hard to get to sleep. I knew what Darby had done but didn't know that it was Grandma Mimi who first sent Duchess to our door to get us up.

With wet face, I looked over at the small bedside clock and it was barely eight o'clock. Certainly, early for a summer morning but not early for a farm morning.  With the door open, Grandma's music wafted in and so did the smells of a maple-filled breakfast. The smell was helping me out of my angry-to-be-awake mood.

 We finally made our morning appearance.

“Good morning, you two. Pleasant dreams I hope," Grandma said. 

“Yes Ma’am,” Darby answered. Duchess came jiggling out of our room. Proud that, at her age, she could still do a job.

Grandpa Jack was there at the table, and we sat down with him.  Fitch didn't join us. Instead, Grandma Mimi sat down for the first time to enjoy breakfast with us.

“I am just so hungry this morning,” she said. She served French toast and sausage. The big link sausage too. The not too common for breakfast kind. I found them quite tasty with a morning meal.

Mimi was busy passing and scooping and pouring for everyone and all at the same time. She didn’t even stop to think or ask what we wanted or didn’t want. She just kept up with what she was doing and continuously talked non-stop.

“Well, Jack. I will be off to the market today. I suppose you and the twins have plenty of stories to get through anyway. You won’t need me around here. I was up early this morning and packed lunch for you all. Thought you might like to take a break for lunch over by the grove of trees on the north side of the farm. Thought it would be a good place today to eat with the kids. Don’t you think?”

She looked over at him with a smart smile. She wasn’t going to allow him to say no. Before he could say anything, she spoke right up again.

“Don’t you worry about the fences? Fitch said he has them under control, and he is planning on fixing that problem you were having in the wellhouse. He has taken care of feeding all the animals and even managed to gather the eggs for me already, so all the morning chores are done and under control. It should be a perfect day for a picnic – sun and all. And those oaks are perfect for shade, you know that though, Jack. I should be out most of the day – so don’t worry about Duchess and me. We'll be fine. Won’t we Duchess?” She bent down, gave Duchess a pat on the head and a thick piece of sausage.

“Besides,” she said. “You know Duchess loves going to town in the car. It will be good for her to get out of the house and get some window air. Well, it’s decided then. Everyone has a plan for the day.” She grabbed a bite to eat, drank some coffee and was up from the table without really finishing much of anything. She had piled most of the food on all our plates.

“And don’t worry about the breakfast dishes. I will get to those when I get back.” She quickly grabbed her coat and her purse from the counter and went around the table and gave all three of us her famously comforting hugs. She was out the door faster than a summer breeze with Duchess right behind her.

With the slam of the front screen door and the start of her car, she was gone. There was not much the three of us could say at that or at any point. She had a way about her like that. We just continued to eat in deafening silence.

Grandpa Jack's journal had been left for him in the living room. He had not placed it there. He knew as did I who left it out.  I watched him notice it and he just shook his head. He finished his French toast and coffee then stood up and headed for the couch in the living room grabbing the journal on his way.

I noticed and was quick to slop up the rest of my syrupy French toast and down my orange juice. I was up from the table and ready for more of the story.

“Darby, come on,” I said.

She finished her breakfast somewhat quickly. She wasn't about to let her twenty-second younger brother leave her behind. There was no mistake about it, she was interested. She joined us on that worn and comfy couch. We sat on either side of him, just the same as the day before.

He cracked open the book and turned the pages to where we had left off. The top of the next page read “The Ancient History of Giants – Beyond the Bible”. He cleared his voice and started.

“The ancient history of giants beyond the bible is told through nearly every ancient society. From the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians to stories in India, China and throughout Asia, every ancient society that existed has stories that include ancient giants.

The Greek word for giant is Gigantes, from which the English word giant is derived. In ancient Greek texts, these giants were said to be the siblings of the Titans and closely related to the Cyclopes who were giants that had only one eye in the center of their head. The history of ancient Greece states that the giants had conquered ancient Mount Olympus near Athens, and that Hercules was called up to rid the Mount of the intruders.

The battle between the giants and Hercules was brutal and bloody. With a sword in one hand and a saber in the other, Hercules stood his ground atop Mount Olympus and fought back the charging giants. With his sword, he sliced the heads off the savage barbarians. Their heads were said to roll down the mountain side with audible thundering wails. 

Hercules threw their bodies in the great valleys of Greece below. The bleeding, headless masses filled the valleys and were covered over by the mountains in their place. The piles of dead giants eventually became the mountainous regions of the Greek countryside. It was in the mountains of Greece that many bones belonging to the giants would be discovered and written about throughout the centuries of Greek history.

Locals to the mountains have passed on the legend that when earthquakes or even when volcanoes erupt, it is the dead slain giants evoking revenge and anger over being conquered centuries ago. Their resentment of the conquest by Hercules continues to shake the ground of Greece to this day, so says the legends of the modern people.              

Research from ancient times until only about 40 years ago shows signs of giant bones being found in the mountains of Greece. Many believe that this is concrete evidence that such history is true, while others conclude that the remains could easily be the bones of extinct dinosaurs and not that of a giant race of people that roamed the earth.”

“What do you believe, Grandpa?” I asked.

“These journals are my stories and in them, you will see what I believed and believe even to this day.”

“Grandpa,” Darby said. “These journals of yours, are they just journals of stories you’ve gathered? What part do you play in them specifically?”

Grandpa smiled. Darby the skeptic was looking for exactly what he had been looking for. He was sure that she wanted to know was what physical proof was there that giants existed. It was obvious to him that I believed out of faith in my grandfather much like Mimi believed out of faith in her husband.

“Darby, these journals and that cabin are filled with my research. The research of an anthropologist is a combination of reading history as well as doing field studies.”

With that he flipped to the page titled, “The Ancient Giants in Greece”. As he turned the page, a loose black and white photo slid down the page. It was a little fuzzy and the black and white color was browner than black. The photo was of two men with their arms over each other’s shoulders. The men were smiling. Behind the men was a group of bearded men in various attire including some in robes and wearing heavy sandals. There was also a woman dressed in men’s pants and a white button-down man’s shirt in the photo. Her hair is pulled back under a scarf. The group appeared to be standing in front of a small opening to a cave.

“Who is this?” I asked. Not wanting to miss what I was looking at; Darby grabbed the photo off the page for a closer look. Her eyes lock on the woman in the photo as if in a trance.

“Is that Grandma?” she asked. Grandpa gently reached for the photo from Darby. With one hand, he held her hand holding the photo, and gently grabbed the photo with his other hand. He started up before we could ask any more questions.

“As I was saying, the ancient history of the giants is flooded with evidence from all over the world including Russia, India, Italy, and Greece. Ancient writers and scholars wrote of not just the belief that such giants existed, but of the wondrous stories of their existence as well. Ancient Greek history is filled with countless stories of giant heroes and villains. Their stories include the Titans and the one-eyed Cyclopes, as well as Atlas and Hercules. What is wonderful about these mythological stories is that they are qualified not just by history but by physical proof of the existence of giants in ancient times.”

Grandpa had managed to tuck the photo back into the journal without us knowing. His story was an easy distraction.

Darby asked, “What proof?”

Grandpa continued, “The ancient Greeks left behind written documentation of the discovery of giant burial grounds and the remains of their bodies. They had giant bones as proof that giants had existed. These types of discoveries give credence to the stories many ancient writers tell, writers like Homer and Hesiod. It is a historical acceptance that the ancient Greeks and Romans discovered the bones of a giant species of man and thus believed that giants existed based on these physical findings. The ancient Greeks and Romans were our first paleontologists and archaeologists. It was not just mythology to them. Their descriptions of their Gigantes and Titans were true to historical reference. There are historical references that include specific descriptions such as those in the bible that described Goliath and other giant stories.

The ancient stories of Hercules destroying the giants of Asia and Italy were handed down from generation to generation and were authenticated in ancient times by the discovery of actual physical giant bones. These discoveries lent authenticity to the stories themselves. These stories and the bones found were proof that not only giants were real to the Greeks but that they were great warriors in ancient times.

It is the stories of Hercules that blend the history of the bible with ancient Greece. Hercules is thought to be a descendant of Noah from the bible. The biblical references in Genesis and later in the bible which occur after the Great Flood have led many scholars to speculate that giants existed before the flood. Then those eight survivors on the ark had to have some giant ancestry in them. This lends itself to the references to giants as the sons of Seth.

The great warrior, Hercules, was said to be a direct descendant of Noah’s son, Japheth, who survived the flood with Noah. Japheth is said to have gone to live in the region of Europe and that his descendants became European royalty in the region known as Gaul. It is also written that Hercules, and his siblings are the ancestors of royalty in Gaul or what became France linking the lineage of both together.  Hercules’ own daughter’s genealogy can be traced to the Emperor Charlemagne, the King of France.”

Grandpa turned the page of the journal and on the right side of the next page were two photos and the glue trail for where the third picture had been stationed. The top photo was of two men and a third on the steps of a university building. The photo was very similar to the one picture that had hung in the hall of our parent’s house. The middle photo was of a man and a woman standing among ancient ruins of a great temple in a desert.

Grandpa continued, “Within the ancient texts was proof that the remains of what were believed to be giant bones were discovered. But history would not be as conclusive as the findings of the ancients. Scientists would argue that the bones found were more likely those of extinct dinosaurs or ancient animals like the mammoth. Others insist that humans between ten and twenty feet tall had indeed lived among these great creatures and the remains found by the ancient Greeks were those of the giants that history spoke of.

These photos are from our quest to find answers to that very argument. Proof to the question of whether the ancient Greeks had physical proof of the existence of the giants or if their finds were just that of extinct creatures like the dinosaurs. Many years ago, I was given a research grant to go and find fossil remains of the ancient giants. The goal was to find fossilized giant remains and determine their origin”

“Who went with you?” Darby asked.

“It was me and a partner as well as an entire excavation team.”

Grandpa Jack thumbed through the journal to find where he had tucked away the loose photo. He pulled the photo back out.

“Grandpa, so is this you in the picture?” I asked.

CHAPTER CONTINUES IN NEXT EPISODE