You’ve seen the statues. Maybe you’ve walked past a stained-glass window in some drafty old cathedral and noticed a tiny figure of a holy person standing next to a massive, hulking brute. It’s a recurring theme that pops up across Europe and the Middle East, yet we don't really talk about it much outside of niche academic circles. Why are there so many stories about saints and the giants? Honestly, it’s because the early church was trying to make sense of a world that still felt very big, very old, and very scary.
People used to find massive bones in the ground and they didn't have a word for "dinosaur." They had "giant." When a missionary showed up to convert a village, they didn't just bring a Bible; they brought stories of spiritual dominance over the physical monsters of the local landscape.
The Real Deal Behind Saint Christopher
Most people know Saint Christopher as the patron saint of travelers. You might even have a medal of him in your car. But if you dig into the Legenda Aurea (The Golden Legend), written by Jacobus de Voragine in the 13th century, the description is wild. He wasn't just a tall guy. He was described as a member of the Cynocephali—a race of dog-headed giants.
Wait, what?
Yeah. According to these old texts, Christopher stood about twelve feet tall. He was a literal giant who sought to serve the greatest king in existence. He tried serving a human king, then the devil, but eventually realized that Christ was the only power that could make the devil tremble. The famous story of him carrying a child across a river—a child that grew heavier and heavier until Christopher felt like he was carrying the weight of the entire world—is the ultimate "giant" trope. It’s a physical manifestation of spiritual burden. It turns a terrifying monster into a servant of the divine.
Why Did the Church Care About Giants?
It wasn't just about cool stories. There was a practical, almost political reason for the overlap of saints and the giants.
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Back in the day, if you were a monk trying to build a monastery in a remote part of Britain or Gaul, you’d often find ruins. Massive stone blocks that no living person knew how to move. The locals would say, "Oh, the giants built that." Instead of arguing, the church would "baptize" the legend. They’d claim a saint had defeated the giant or tricked the giant into building the church.
Take Saint Patrick, for example. In the Acallam na Senórach, he doesn't just drive out snakes. He literally hangs out with the last survivors of the Fianna, who are described as being of enormous stature compared to the new Christians. It’s a metaphor for the old world passing away. The "giants" of paganism are shrinking in the light of the new faith.
Actually, think about Saint Michael the Archangel. He’s often depicted slaying a dragon, but in many local European folk traditions, that "dragon" was interchangeable with a giant. Mount Saint-Michel in France has heaps of lore about a giant named Gargantua (before Rabelais made the name famous) who lived on the mount before the Archangel claimed the territory.
The Nephilim Connection
You can’t talk about saints and the giants without touching on the Book of Genesis.
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that..."
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This single line created a massive headache for early theologians like Saint Augustine. In The City of God, Augustine spends quite a bit of time arguing that giants were real people, not just myths. He actually mentions seeing a human molar in Tunisia that was a hundred times the size of a normal tooth. He used this as "proof" that the antediluvian (pre-flood) world was populated by massive beings.
For the saints, these giants represented the "unredeemed" state of humanity. They were strong but stupid. Powerful but without soul. When a saint defeated a giant—like Saint Martha taming the Tarasque or Saint Romain defeating the Gargouille—it symbolized the victory of the mind and spirit over brute, animalistic force.
Saint Benoit and the Stone of the Devil
In Italy, there’s this great story about Saint Benedict. While he was building the monastery at Monte Cassino, his monks tried to move a specific stone. They couldn't budge it. Not even a little. They were convinced a giant demon was sitting on it, making it heavy.
Benedict basically just sighed, said a prayer, and the "weight" vanished. This is a recurring theme: the giants (or their demonic equivalents) use physical mass to stop progress. The saints use "grace" to bypass the laws of physics. It’s a classic David and Goliath dynamic, but repeated hundreds of times across different cultures.
What This Means for History
We have to be careful not to dismiss this stuff as just "fairy tales." When we study the relationship between saints and the giants, we're looking at how humans process the unknown.
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- Archaeological Misinterpretation: Many "giant" sites were actually Roman ruins or megalithic structures like Stonehenge.
- Biological Anomalies: Megafauna bones (mammoths) were frequently identified as "giant bones" by medieval observers.
- Cultural Erasure: Local heroes of conquered tribes were often demoted to "monsters" or "giants" in the hagiography of the winning side.
It's sorta fascinating when you realize that the "giant" was often just the "other." By having a saint defeat them, the church was saying, "Our way is better than the old way."
Modern Remnants
Believe it or not, this isn't all dead history. In places like Belgium and Northern France, they still have "Giant Processions" (the Procession des Géants). These are huge, towering effigies of legendary figures—many of whom are linked to local saints—that are paraded through the streets. They are recognized by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
You’ve got characters like Gayant in Douai or the giants of Ath. These festivals are the living heartbeat of the saints and the giants lore. They’ve evolved from terrifying monsters into beloved community mascots, but the DNA of that original struggle—the saint vs. the giant—is still there if you look at the dates they are celebrated, which almost always align with feast days.
How to Explore This Further
If you’re actually interested in the crossover between folklore and hagiography, don't just stick to Wikipedia. You need to look at primary texts or academic breakdowns that haven't been watered down.
- Read the Golden Legend: It’s basically the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" of the medieval world. It’s where all the weirdest giant stories live.
- Visit Megalithic Sites: If you ever go to Cornwall or Brittany, look for the "Giant’s Quoits." Then look up the local saint's name associated with that town. You will almost always find a story where the saint "fixed" or "banished" the giant who lived there.
- Check out the Museum of the Giants in Ath: It’s in Belgium. It’s weird, niche, and totally worth it if you want to see how these legends transformed into street theater.
- Look into 'Gigantology': There are actual researchers who track how giant myths correlate with seismic activity and fossil finds. Adrienne Mayor’s book The First Fossil Hunters is a great starting point for seeing how "giant bones" were actually dinosaur fossils.
The stories of saints and the giants aren't just about big people and holy people. They are about the moment humanity stopped being afraid of the shadows in the caves and started trying to organize the world into something they could understand. It’s about the transition from the wild, untamed earth to the "civilized" world. Even if you don't believe in the miracles, the cultural impact is undeniable. The giants didn't really disappear; we just stopped calling them giants and started calling them "the past."