Stone Giants

Upon rereading The Hobbit i became curious about origins and fate of the "Stone Giants". They are mentioned scantly. Also I think I heard in one of the earlier parts of the Simairlon a mentioning of "Rock Giants" with Morgoth. Any information would be appreciated (at 1st).

[Ben]

I've always wondered about them too. I think maybe the Stone Giants weren't real at all, just like the ancients might've referred to thunder as giants wrestling.

[webwizard333]

I have my own theory about these stone and rock giants (though I have never read The Silmarrilion myself). Tolkienn clearly states that trolls were made by Melkor from stones and rocks, probably good sized boulders. Lets say, he decided to make a troll from a very large hill or a small mountain. A stone or rock giant may have been the result. Another theory is that the were maiar, but then what were they doing playing in mountains, and why didn't they help Sauron?

[Ñólendil]

I don't know of any mention of them from The Silmarillion. Whatever they were I very much doubt they were makings of Morgoth or Sauron. There were decent ('more or less'--Gandalf) Stone Giants too. I imagine they're just some sort of Race of people, perhaps the opposite of Hobbits, a very large Race of Man.

[Wayfarer]

It's more likely that they were something along the lines of the ents... just as the ents were awakened trees, the stone giants would have been awakened stones.

[Erewe]

I think they were just another element of the "fairy" tale that Tolkien put into The Hobbit to make it more of a childrens book.

--Erewë

[Ñólendil]

You're right wayfarer, that is more likely.

Erewe, that is true (although the exp. in the mountains was largely influenced by Tolkien's own exp as a young man), but Tolkien always felt bound by what was published in his life on his Middle-earth. As such I don't think it would be right (correct) to dismiss the Giants from the Tolkien-canon. My canon I guess is what I really mean, that's what everyone really means

[Erewe]

Hmmm... I never heard that. (Or at least, I don't *remember* hearing it). Wasn't that trip in the mountains the same one that he picked up that post card that inspired Gandalf? I'm not sure. I've only skimmed through the biography.

--Erewë

[Ñólendil]

And I've only read the beginning of it, but yeah, that sounds right.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by UnStashable

Upon rereading The Hobbit i became curious about origins and fate of the "Stone Giants". They are mentioned scantly. Also I think I heard in one of the earlier parts of the Simairlon a mentioning of "Rock Giants" with Morgoth. Any information would be appreciated (at 1st).

A couple of years after this thread was started, I developed a somewhat detailed argument about the giants. I repost here what I wrote in response to a similar question posed elsewhere.

The original question asked about the significance of the name "Coldfells". I wrote:

"fells" refers to a hilly moor. Dictionary.com actually defines it as
"an upland stretch of open country; a moor". Or, alternatively, "a
barren or stony hill".

The original question was followed up with another asking whether the Trollfells was the same region as the Ettenmoors.

I wrote:
Look at the text on page 306 (of The Treason of Isengard) for "Entish
land" (which appears in grid J 11). Christopher writes:

ENTISH LAND (J 11) is original, but is absent from the 1943 map; a later note against this on the First Map says: 'Alter Entish Lands to [Trollfeels > Bergrisland >] Ettenmoor'. This would seem to be the place where Ettenmoor(s) was first devised, but see p. 65, note 32. Bergrisland is from Old Norse Berg-risi 'hill-giant'.

It is important to note that Arador "was taken and slain by trolls in the Coldfells" occurs in an earlier version of the tale of Aragorn and Arwen (The Peoples of Middle-earth). So, in both versions of the story, Arador is killed by trolls in the Coldfells. The Coldfells are therefore a region where trolls are to be found (at least on occasion).

The Trollshaws seem, by their name, to be a region were trolls wandered (ir they didn't actually live there). The trolls encountered by Thorin and Company in The Hobbit were in or near the Trollshaws. A "shaw" is a thicket or small wood. The Trollshaws would therefore be a mixture of open lands and small woods or thickets (as the map indicates). It is unlikely there were any fells in amidst the Trollshaws. Hence, the troll-fells where Gandalf says he could not ride Shadowfax cannot possibly be located in the Trollshaws (which are also west of Rivendell).

Gandalf says he passed up the Hoarwell and through the Ettenmoors, but the Ettenmoors seem to lie north of the river. If the moorland extended to the south of the Hoarwell's upper flow, then the Coldfells may have lain in northern Rhudaur, south of the Ettenmoors. The map in The Treason of Isengard implies that some highlands extended out from the mountains into that area (J 11).

It is highly unlikely that Gandalf actually passed north of the Ettenmoors, so probably all the fells he passed through were to the south of that region. Hence, if the troll-fells (which is not a proper name like Coldfells or Ettenmoors, but rather is merely a qualified noun) are the Coldfells, the name itself may be describing the physical appearance of the region rather than its climate. One meaning for "cold" would be pale or grey. Hence, the area could be a whitish (rocky, barren) fell (upland moor).

The Hoarwell (greyflood) river's name also implies the water flows down from a greyish or pale area. The river must enter Eriador through a rocky valley where the stone or clay is of greyish pale tone. The valley cuts through a high moorland which is probably ridged or rattled by gulleys and culverts due to extensive erosion. It would be difficult to ride a horse through such lands.

Finally, we know that Rhudaur, which included the lands north of Rivendell, was largely a hilly region. Hence, the Coldfells were probably located near the root of the Hoarwell in northern Rhudaur, and the river itself may have formed the border between the Coldfells and the Ettenmoors. There were probably trolls in northern Rhudaur, and there may have been giants or hill-trolls in the Ettenmoors.


In 1999, I posted the following information in another, similar discussion:

In the chapter on "Treebeard" in The Treason of Isengard (where Christopher makes the case for his father's having developed the Entish material mostly at the same time as he wrote the chapter), there is a list of notes JRRT
made. One is:

"Difference between *trolls* -- stone inhabited by goblin-spirit, *stone-giants*, and the 'tree-folk'." [*Added in ink*: Ents.]"

It would appear that Tolkien intended to make the Stone-giants of The Hobbit some sort of trolls. But he seems to have dropped the matter. It would have been problematic for him in the end anyway, as he would have to deal with Gandalf's comment about finding some reasonably decent giant to seal up the goblin's gate in the High Pass.



A number of commentators through the years have speculated that Tolkien most likely associated the Old English word eotan, ettin with trolls and ent with giants, but "ettin" can also mean giant. So, he seems to have been uncertain about whether there were giants which were separate and distinct from trolls.

[Wayfarer]

Wow. This thread should be archived, or something. That right there is my first post ever on these boads.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

Wow. This thread should be archived, or something. That right there is my first post ever on these boads.

LOL! And here I thought I had inspired some serious discussion. Oh well.

[Ñólendil]

It's not easy to inspire decent discussion on these boards. Why, not long ago I posted a great Top 10 Important Things to Talk About (or something like that) in which I bashed the great Entmoot I've always loved and been annoyed with. You'd think something like that would get a hoard of responses, but it petered out quickly.

Actually I feel bad I haven't read your latest essay Michael. It's been a while since I sat down with a good MM essay and marveled at the time you're able to spend musing over what color socks Strider wore on Tuesdays in June, on the Shire calendar. Course, that musing would be smack dab in the middle of a very imformative essay about the Elven-wise, and the importance of Celeborn. Really though, they're great contributions to the Tolkien communities, and if each essay is a winding road (and each essay is), then the scenery is nice.

I've always wondered about the stone giants myself, and it's nice to know a somewhat definitive answer (which is that the giants are somewhat not defined).

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Ñólendil

It's not easy to inspire decent discussion on these boards. Why, not long ago I posted a great Top 10 Important Things to Talk About (or something like that) in which I bashed the great Entmoot I've always loved and been annoyed with. You'd think something like that would get a hoard of responses, but it petered out quickly.

Well now, you yourself mentioned it being full of inside jokes in your opening post. That in itself can hold up a thread because of the constant change in active participants of an online community. Besides... it DID get 39 replies to date! Still, I HAVE found that the most 'successful' threads around here, in terms of posts, views and longevity, tend toward a bit of narcissism.

I guess some people can talk a little about Tolkien for a long time, some people can talk a lot about Tolkien for a short time - but it's a rare person who can talk a LOT about Tolkien for a LONG time. Still... if we can get just a FEW of those around here, they can be constant wellsprings of discussion...

[Ñólendil]

39 replies, really? Didn't realize.

Edit: Just reread the Important Questions on page 3. Valandil, half those replies took the form of an annoying "Harfoots/Harfeet" debate, as if just to spite me. So I don't count them.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

on the necyclopaedia of arda (not a brilliantly accurate source, i know), it states that ents and giants may have been one and the same, onodrim -enyd, -ent actually means Giant-man, or Giant-folk.

just a thought ....

[Wayfarer]

Did double take there, Last Child. I read your typo as 'Necropedia' and was wondering what 'dead children' had to do with anything.

I think the problem with serious discussion is that there's so little to discuss. Which means well-meaning speculation has a tendency to take the thread off topic.

Between the tangental discussions needed in order to clarify what we're talking about (Ex: What are stone giants? Maybe a kind of troll. What are trolls?) and the near exhaustion of things to talk about, not to mention the rambling nature of humans in general, finding a topic to discuss and staying on that topic is somewhat difficult.

It would have been problematic for him in the end anyway, as he would have to deal with Gandalf's comment about finding some reasonably decent giant to seal up the goblin's gate in the High Pass.

That might not be so hard - a 'Reasonably decent' giant might just refer to one that's more intelligent and open to bargaining than the others. If we go with the speculation that Stone Giants are a form of, or at least similar too, Trolls in nature, then a 'reasonably decent' troll would be one like William - who argued against killing and eating Bilbo.

[Attalus]

Interesting thread. I have always just pigeonholed the Stone-giants off in the "Things Tolkien put in the Hobbit that he wouldn't if he had written it later, like naming a troll Bill" folder. In retrospect, I think that you all are right, they really were trolls under another name.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by Ñólendil

Actually I feel bad I haven't read your latest essay Michael. It's been a while since I sat down with a good MM essay and marveled at the time you're able to spend musing over what color socks Strider wore on Tuesdays in June, on the Shire calendar.

Well, now I know why I haven't made it into Michael Drout's Tolkien research database....

[Michael Martinez]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

on the necyclopaedia of arda (not a brilliantly accurate source, i know), it states that ents and giants may have been one and the same, onodrim -enyd, -ent actually means Giant-man, or Giant-folk.

just a thought ....

Treebeard was originally going to be an evil giant who imprisoned Gandalf and one of the Hobbits.