In the 1700s, the myth was still alive and entertaining Europeans. Ironically, though, he was really confirming the basic facts behind the myth. He reduced the height of the Patagonians from ten feet to seven and a half feet but was obviously more intent on discrediting the Spanish and blaming them for the “monstrosity” of the giants. But this is certaine, that the Spanish cruelties there used, have made them more monstrous, in minde and manners, then they are in body and more inhospitable, to deale with any strangers, that shall come thereafter. Foote and halfe, describing the full height (if not some what more) of the highest of them. Magellane was not altogether deceived, in naming them Giants for they generally differ from the common sort of men, both in stature, bignes, and strength of body, as also in the hideousnesse of their voice: but yet they are nothing so monstrous, or giantlike as they were reported there being some English men, as tall, as the highest of any that we could see, but peradventure, the Spaniards did not thinke, that ever any English man would come thither, to reprove them and thereupon might presume the more boldly to lie: the name Pentagones, Five cubits viz. One hundred years later, in The World Encompassed (London, 1628), the first detailed account of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation, the author, Drake’s nephew of the same name, wrote: Frontispiece to Viaggio intorno al mondo fatto dalla nave Inglese il Delfino comandata dal caposqadra Byron (Florence, 1768), the first Italian edition of John Byron’s A Voyage Round the World in His Majesty’s Ship the Dolphin. The etymology of the word is unclear, but Patagonia came to mean “Land of the Bigfeet.” Magellan seized two of the younger males as hostages to bring back to Spain, but they got sick and died on the journey.Įnglish sailor offering bread to a Patagonian woman giant. The captain named the people of this sort Pathagoni. And he was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist. And when he was before us, he began to marvel and to be afraid, and he raised one finger upward, believing that we came from heaven. Immediately the man of the ship, dancing, led this giant to a small island where the captain awaited him. Our captain sent one of his men toward him, charging him to leap and sing like the other in order to reassure him and to show him friendship. The first mention of this mythical race surfaced in the 1520s from the account of Antonio Pigafetta, chronicler of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition:īut one day (without anyone expecting it) we saw a giant who was on the shore, quite naked, and who danced, leaped, and sang, and while he sang he threw sand and dust on his head. The myth of the Patagonian Giants, like other stories about remote, exotic places, captured the European imagination for a very long time.

Present and accounted for sir