ABSTRACT
SACRED and profane historians clearly report the great feats of giants and champions, stating distinctly the reason, time, and geographical location of their deeds, together with their mode of life. Nevertheless it will not be a superfluous task for me to add to these some pieces of evidence that have been unearthed from the rocks and boulders of the northern regions, and openly publicize them to everyone throughout the world, seeing that they have been recorded in books only by very ancient and inaccessible writers. The far-distant areas, elsewhere depicted on my Gothic map, namely Finnmark, Biarmia, Scricfinnia, Hálsingland, etc., everywhere display such obvious monuments of giants to inquisitive observers, or those wishful to learn, that their bounding wonder leaves them no option but to believe that such lofty blocks of stone and such a huge assemblage of mounds were built and completed not by any short method of Nature, but by men of extraordinary strength. 1 So similar rocks are to be seen everywhere 2 in the plains, forests, and mountains of the Swedish, Gota, and Norwegian realms. What Saxo Grammaticus, that most conscientious historian of the Danes, has to say on this subject with regard to his own land of Denmark, the diligent reader may find by looking, as much as it pleases him, near the end of the Preface to his Histories; there he will learn that the Danish land was once cultivated by a civilization of giants, as is borne out by the stones of amazing size placed by ancient tombs and caves. Now, if anyone doubts whether these were feats of superhuman strength, let him scan the heights of certain mounds and say, if he can, who carried such enormous boulders to their summits. For it is unthinkable to anyone who assesses this marvel that a rocky mass, which on flat ground can scarcely be moved, and that only with difficulty, should be raised to so high a point by human toil alone, or by the ordinary efforts of human energy. But Saxo admits that he has gained little knowledge from the antiquities of Denmark as to whether the builders of such works were giants who came into being after the Flood, or were men endowed with preternatural physical strength. 3 Perhaps if he had scrutinized the rocks and boulders of Upper Sweden and Götaland he would, with his wonderful talent, have transmitted to posterity some of these ancient people’s splendid achievements, for Svealand and Götaland had kings and princes thirteen hundred and seventy years before Dan, the first king in Denmark, began to reign, 4 and their magnificent deeds, carved on rocks, 5 are pored over in our day by those eager for knowledge.
Feats of ancestors have been culled from rocks
Gothic map, published 1539 at Venice
Assemblage of mounds
Saxo
Immovable mass of rock
Sweden and Götaland had kings 1370 years before Denmark
