ined in much the same fashion by the Oldenburg family,
is exhibited in the collection of the King of Denmark.

The giants were not supposed to remain stationary, but were said to
move about in the darkness, sometimes transporting masses of earth
and sand, which they dropped here and there. The sandhills in northern
Germany and Denmark were supposed to have been thus formed.

The Giants' Ship

A North Frisian tradition relates that the giants possessed a colossal
ship, called Mannigfual, which constantly cruised about in the Atlantic
Ocean. Such was the size of this vessel that the captain was said
to patrol the deck on horseback, while the rigging was so extensive
and the masts so high that the sailors who went up as youths came
down as gray-haired men, having rested and refreshed themselves in
rooms fashioned and provisioned for that purpose in the huge blocks
and pulleys.

By some mischance it happened that the pilot once directed the immense
vessel into the North Sea, and wishing to return to the Atlantic
as soon as possible, yet not daring to turn in such a small space,
he steered into the English Channel. Imagine the dismay of all on
board when they saw the passage growing narrower and narrower the
farther they advanced. When they came to the narrowest spot, between
Calais and Dover, it seemed barely possible that the vessel, drifting
along with the current, could force its way through. The captain,
with laudable presence of mind, promptly bade his men soap the sides
of the ship, and to lay an extra-thick layer on the starboard, where
the rugged cliffs of Dover rose threateningly. These orders were no
sooner carried out than the vessel entered the narrow space, and,
thanks to the captain's precaution, it slipped safely through. The
rocks of Dover scraped off so much soap, however, that ever since
they have been particularly white, and the waves dashing against them
still have an unusually foamy appearance.

This exciting experience was not the only one through which the
Mannigfual passed, for we are told that it once, nobody knows how,
penetrated into the Baltic Sea, where, the water not being deep enough
to keep the vessel afloat, the captain ordered all the ballast to be
thrown overboard. The material thus cast on either side of the vessel
into the sea formed the two islands of Bornholm and Christiansoe.

Princess Ilse

In Thuringia and in the Black Forest the stories of the giants are
legion, an