The Giants
Myths are just exaggerated legends. And many of your legends predate recorded history, even by tens of thousands of years. Some people believe these threads reach back nearly a hundred-thousand years, back to the seeds of origin.
You can find stories of the ancient giants throughout your myths. Also late findings of gigantic bodies and bones uncovered—discoveries of large skeletons—many have been easily disproved. However, every human culture seems to have eroding stories of these humongous hominids.
After all, legends are rooted in forgotten history.
And long before your established histories, before prehistory, early peoples shared the earth. There were many of us, large families and various tribes. We looked different and used different tools. We created particular types of shelters and compounds. All of us were discovering language at the same time while building small communities—the fires were kept alive day and night.
Some of us journeyed to nearby rivers and collected fish from reed baskets. Others reached high to gather olives and pomegranates. We split these duties by strength and size.
There were fights and occasional battles between the different kinds. But it would be a stretch to call this ‘war’ in any sense, especially compared to your recorded histories. We also collaborated often, between our family groups and even amongst the other kinds. A lot of inadvertent exchanging of ideas, and words. Cultures were being shaped, and they were evolving into the forever of generations to come.
One thing we all had in common was a horrid fear of the giants. These huge beasts looked like bearded monsters. They stood almost twice as tall as our tallest fruit pickers; always coming in the middle of the night, raiding our small villages, sacking the food storage, murdering and raping our families. Their clubs and sharpened rocks were hideous weapons compared to ours.
These weapons and crafts were terrifying. Some giants carried blades made of a glistening black glass that glowed by flame. Although they didn’t need such weapons to trample and destroy our huts, or crush the bones of their helpless victims, they still used them anyway. Cutting and beating and torturing, occasionally enslaving.
There were two types of giants, but it was nearly impossible to tell them apart. Some tribes had names for them. Others just referred to them as the o’oglünt. We had no written words, but it sounded like that. Roughly meaning two times bigger, twice less hair. This was a common word with all villages and peoples, even with our different customs and languages. Our children were rightfully scared after hearing the stories told at night by the elders. Stories of horrible things. Stories that were tame compared to what really happened. Similar horrors were retold throughout the various tribes of several different kinds. The tales of the o’oglünt became ubiquitous, much like the word itself.
Over time it became well-known lore, even the giants themselves began telling similar stories to their young. Fear is a powerful magic, used to sculpt belief and program behavior. It’s an involuntary phenomenon, another ubiquity found throughout cultures. Just like stories and myth, lighting up like faces around the flames of a fire, watching the sparks acend, turning to stars.
This terror lasted for tens of thousands of years. The giants emerged into this way of being. They made this perversion part of their culture, and it didn’t stop until the smaller kinds was eradicated. Some of us adopted nomadic ways, constantly traveling to escape the coming wrath. All were eventually found and snuffed into extinction. Some died out in the cold, northern regions. Most were systematically murdered.
The two different types of giants started working together and eventually interbred. They were excellent hunters. Warriors. Killers. Their intelligence grew, or perhaps devolved depending on your take. And after they killed off every lineage of the smaller kinds? That’s when they started fighting each other.
They made cities, and new weapons, and wondering beliefs—all used to fight each other with. Their language evolved and they turned it into written word with complicated syntax. They fabricated a new golden god to control their growing masses, and they named it money. Then they created history.