Stone Giants

[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).

[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]

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]

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]

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! :p 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]

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]

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.

[Valandil]

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.

So do you think Gandalf was hoping to find a 'more or less decent troll' to plug up the goblins' tunnel? ;) :p

EDIT: Oops! Just re-read Wayfarer's post... he makes a somewhat reasonable hypothesis. I still disagree though. I suspect that when initially writing 'The Hobbit' that Tolkien envisioned a world with a very wide array of all the sorts of creatures encountered in 'fairy tales' - and that he was only giving a glimpse, only touching on some of them, with what he wrote in that particular story.

[Attalus]

*Puts Stone Giants back in the "Things Tolkien put in The Hobbit that he wouldn't if he had written it later, like naming a troll Bill" folder.*

[barrelrider110]

The Giants of Norse legends lived in an abode called Jotunheim (giant-home). Other overworldy realms includes Alfheim, home of the light-elves (ljósalfar), Svartalfheim, home of the dark-elves, and Nidavellr, the mines of the dwarves. In between these was Midgard (“Middle-Earth?”). These giants were huge, uncouth creatures that turned to cold, hard stone when the rays of the sun struck them. For this reason they were unable to move about the countryside except under the protection of night or a blanket of thick fog. When not feuding with the gods of Asgard. The immensely powerful Norse giants quarreled and bickered among themselves, casting their massive stone axes, boulders or stones at each other in fits of rage.

“he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang.”

Giants are mentioned extensively (13 times) in the Hobbit and should have taken a grand part in the upcoming wars, but were never developed.
Even revised, the Hobbit is so different in tone from other Middle-earth works. I agree with Attalus: the missing giants do fall into the category of "things Tolkien would not have wriiten in the story if he had written it later." Some others:
-Shouting purses (When Bilbo tries to steal a purse from the Trolls);
-Elves that appear either as silly (Rivendell), or hostile (Mirkwood);
-The narrator that denies knowledge on the Ring's nature and history (which is quite well known from the other texts);
-Radagast as Gandalf’s cousin.

The world is, “after all, full of strange creatures beyond count…”

[Halbarad of the Dunedain]

-Radagast as Gandalf’s cousin.

Technicaly I think Rad is Gandalf's "cousin" Considering that the Valar were in a sense related[as bro-sis type thing] their subseqent followers the maiar would be related in second ad cousins.

[barrelrider110]

You could technically say that Gandalf and Radagast are "cousins" related but not in the same sense as Pippin being Frodo's cousin. Use of the familiar term goes to show that the tone of the Hobbit is vastly different from LotR, where Gandalf might have said "Radagast the Brown, a member of my order."

[Wayfarer]

I agree with Attalus: the missing giants do fall into the category of "things Tolkien would not have wriiten in the story if he had written it later." Some others:
-Shouting purses (When Bilbo tries to steal a purse from the Trolls);
-Elves that appear either as silly (Rivendell), or hostile (Mirkwood);
-The narrator that denies knowledge on the Ring's nature and history (which is quite well known from the other texts);
-Radagast as Gandalf’s cousin.

To be honest...

The elves should appear silly and appear hostile at times. The fact that they do not in the Lord of the Rings is an aberration, due to the great events happening at that time. By the same token, Humans in LOTR are equally sombre and serious. Looking to the Silmarillion, we see that hostility is in fact quite natural for the elves, and I any race which cannot be silly is not one which I would call good.

No, the Elves in the Hobbit are a snapshot of what their lives would have been like when they were at rest. The LOTR and the Silmarillion, on the other hand, show their actions during momentous occassions, which we can reasonably expect to be different.


The difference in narration, as far as I know, is that the Narrator in The Hobbit addresses the audience in a more personal manner, while the narrator in the Lord of the Rings maintains a more professional manner.

This is also somewhat easy to explain, since the Hobbit was first written down by Bilbo whereas the Lord of the Rings were written down by Frodo. They can reasonably have been expected to have had different tones and styles.


Which leaves the talking purse... an object which is truthfully not out of the question, given what else we see in Middle Earth.

[barrelrider110]

This is also somewhat easy to explain, since the Hobbit was first written down by Bilbo whereas the Lord of the Rings were written down by Frodo. They can reasonably have been expected to have had different tones and styles.

So you're saying that there is a difference in tone. The Chapter "Riddles in the Dark" was altered to fit the events of the Hobbit into the later text, and please don't give me "Bilbo wrote this and Frodo wrote that" stuff because you just don't have an argument.

Stone Giants better fit into a fairy-tale setting, that's why they don't appear in either the Sil or LotR. Except...

Although they aren't mentioned in LotR directly, on the Redhorn Pass in "The Ring Goes South" Boromir says, "Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us."