Countless myths have been passed down to us from the most diverse cultural periods. They contain images of early humanity depicting the origin of the world, the activity of the forces of nature, gods and fate after death.
the power of the giants ‘I remember the giants, born in primordial times, who long ago granted me life…’ The vision of the seer, verse 2
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n the eyes of the Germanics, not only did positive, constructive forces of nature contribute to the formation of the universe, but also negative, destructive ones. They saw them as giants who helped develop the creation of the earth and of everything that lives and grows. They expressed both the helping and the tremendous and intimidating power of the elements. The people experienced them as living beings and assigned names to them. They called the giants Jotuns who inhabited the kingdom of Jotunheim. They enabled growth and genesis during the eternal cycle of dying and being born. The Germanic tribes feared the ‘rock giant’, the all-devouring one, who did not even leave the sun and the moon alone. In winter, at the northern latitudes, when the sun threatened to be wholly ‘devoured’ by the night, the people feared that de praktische opvoeding van het denken 37
