Earth Giants

The Earth Giants are the legendary, primordial race of the Hyborian Age, remembered above all for a single catastrophic act: they stole the secret of steel from Crom, the father of the gods. Their story, told by Conan's father Corin on a storm-swept ridge in Cimmeria, is the foundational myth of the entire saga, explaining the origin of the metal that Conan will come to trust above all else. The giants are the measure against which both gods and men are defined—crafty enough to deceive a god, yet mortal enough to be utterly annihilated by his wrath. Their fate haunts the narrative, surfacing in Conan's memories, his prayers, and the very landscape of the Hyborian world, a constant reminder of the power and peril of the secret they once held.

Origins and the Theft of Steel

According to the tale Corin tells his young son, the Earth Giants were the ancient inhabitants of the earth, dwelling within its depths. They were "crafty and wise," the "fashioners of stone and wood, the miners of gems and gold," a race of skilled artisans and cunning minds. In the "darkness of chaos," they managed to be-fool even Crom, the mightiest of the gods, who ruled earth, heaven, and the sea. Through their wiles, they stole from him "the most precious possession of the immortals: the secret of the silvery metal that, when bent, springs into shape again." This was the secret of steel, a knowledge the gods had jealously guarded in their inmost hearts, never teaching it to men. The giants' theft was not a simple act of larceny but a cosmic transgression, an attempt to seize divine power and bring it into the mortal realm.

Crom's Wrath and the Giants' Fall

The theft provoked a cataclysmic response. "Greatly was Crom enraged," Corin recounts, and the earth trembled as the mountains opened. Crom smote the Earth Giants with "blasts of wind and bolts of fire," and they fell down, swallowed forever by the earth. The ground closed its "rocky lips" and gulped them down "into the bowels of the world, the unknown place where dark things creep and crawl, the place whereof man knoweth naught." This punishment was absolute and eternal, a divine judgment that removed the giants from the world but left their legacy behind. In their destruction, the gods departed for their celestial realm, but in their wrath they overlooked the secret of the beaten metal, leaving it upon the battlefield. There, the first men found it—the Atlanteans of legend, the ancestors of the Cimmerians and all Hyborian peoples. Thus, the giants' crime became humanity's inheritance, a double-edged gift of power and peril.

The Legacy of the Giants in Conan's World

The legend of the Earth Giants is not merely a distant myth for Conan; it is a living presence that shapes his worldview. His father uses the story to teach him the central lesson of his life: that steel is the only thing a man can trust. "In all the world you can trust no one, neither man nor woman nor beast, neither spirit nor demon nor god," Corin tells him, "But you can trust a blade of well-forged steel." The giants' fate demonstrates the consequences of wielding such power without understanding it, and Corin warns his son to "be wary of steel" and hold it in respect, for it carries within it a mystery and a power. The giants also serve as a model of divine punishment, reinforcing Conan's belief in a distant, indifferent Crom who cares not for the sins of puny men. When Conan later faces the earthquake in Kolari, he recalls the legends his father told him about giants in the earth and wonders whether some of them, astir, are causing the catastrophe, showing how the myth remains a live explanation for the world's violent forces.

The Giants as a Measure of Power

The Earth Giants also function as a benchmark for true power in the narrative. Thulsa Doom, the cult leader who seeks to supplant the gods, invokes the giants' story to redefine strength. After demonstrating his power by commanding a girl to leap to her death, he tells Conan: "That is strength, boy—that is power! It is strength against which the hardness of steel or the resilience of human flesh are as naught. What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it; what is the hand, without a mind to command it?" This is a direct challenge to the Cimmerian code that Corin taught, a re-interpretation of the giants' legacy that elevates the will of the wielder above the weapon itself. The giants, who stole steel from the gods, are thus the archetype of those who would seize power, and Doom sees himself as their heir, a being who commands not through steel but through the force of his mind and sorcery. Conan's eventual victory over Doom, achieved with his father's sword, is a vindication of the giants' original lesson: that steel, properly understood and wielded, is the ultimate trust.

The Giants in the Landscape of Horror

The giants' legacy also permeates the physical world Conan traverses, manifesting in the grotesque and the monstrous. The Tower of the Black Serpent, where Conan and Subotai infiltrate a cult ceremony, is a place of death and decay, its lower chamber littered with corpses, a scene that echoes the giants' fate of being swallowed by the earth. The Mountain of Power, the cult's stronghold, is a place of cannibalistic horror, where beast-men butcher human pilgrims and toss their pieces into a boiling cauldron, a perversion of the giants' role as miners and craftsmen. Even the Tree of Woe, where Conan is crucified, stands on a plain of chalky soil that is "as white as new-fallen snow," a desolate landscape that evokes the giants' tomb. These places are not merely settings but are infused with the memory of the giants' transgression and punishment, a world where the earth itself seems to hold the bones of the ancient race and where the secret of steel is both a gift and a curse. The giants, though long gone, remain a constant, unseen presence, their story the key to understanding the power of steel, the nature of the gods, and the struggle between mortal strength and divine will that defines Conan's journey.