gog and magog

Towards the head of the procession you will see two enormous but benevolent giants. They are Gog and Magog, the traditional guardians of the City of London who have been carried in the Lord Mayor's Show since the reign of Henry V. They are descended from the pagan giants of early English pageantry and their history is buried in the mysterious world of myth and legend.

The story goes that Diocletian - the Roman Emperor - had thirty-three wicked daughters, for whom he managed to find thirty-three husbands to curb their unruly ways. The daughters were dismayed, and under the leadership of their eldest sister Alba they plotted to cut the throats of their husbands as they slept.

For this crime they were set adrift in a boat with half a year's rations, and after a long and dreadful journey they arrived at the islands which came to be named Albion after the eldest. Here they stayed, co-habited with demons, and produced a race of evil giants to inhabit the wild, windswept islands.

Many early peoples regarded the original inhabitants of their territory as giants, and the memory of these early races was preserved in mythology. Heros became giants in the popular mind. They were often large and powerful men, and their physical strength and stature became exaggerated as their deeds passed into legend. The pagan giants were not ugly or deformed, they were simply giant men inhabiting a golden age of might and simplicity.

The story continues: Brutus, the great-grandson of Æneas, fled from Troy and by way of various scrapes arrived in these islands, which he renamed after himself; Britain. With him he brought his most able warrior and champion, Corineus, who fought the leader of the giant brood in single combat and eventually slew him by hurling him from a high rock into the sea.

The name of the giant was Gogmagog and the rock from which he was thrown became known as Langoënagog or "The Giants Leap". As a reward Corineus was given the western part of the island, which became named after him; Cornwall. Brutus travelled to the east, where he built a city which he called Troya Nova, or New Troy, which eventually came to be known as London.

At one time human sacrifice was common, but as times grew more civilized, images of men were burned instead of the men themselves. Finally the figures received the name of the divinity in whose honour the feast was held; and in time these became saints' images. The custom of carrying effigies at various festivals became widespread, not only in England but on the continent. These giants of pageantry that you will see today are the last vestiges of the pagan effigies. Our giants have no trace of the supernatural about them, they originated in folk custom, deriving their names from historical or pseudo-historical characters like Gogmagog, from Biblical history like Samson, or from classical mythology like Hercules. They are a part of a tradition in English pageantry which pre-dates Christianity.

Another version of the story has it that these two giants were the last two survivors of the sons of the thirty-three infamous daughters of Diocletian, who were captured and kept chained to the gates of a palace on the site of Guildhall to act as guardians. Whichever way, they got there, we know that by the reign of Henry V, there were giants residing in Guildhall. And when in 1554, they appeared in the Lord Mayor's Show, the names Gogmagog and Corineus were attached to the London giants for the first time. The giant of folk-custom made an admirable champion and it was natural to develop a champion into a local hero.

In 1605 the Pageantmaster of the day alluded to the giants who appeared in the Procession on Lord Mayor's Day as Corineus and Gogmagog. And later in 1672, the Pageantmaster Thomas Jordan referred to them as "two exceeding rarities", and stated that "at the conclusion of the Show, they are to be set up in Guildhall, where they may be daily seen all year and I hope never to be demolished by such dismal violence as happened to their predecessors." He was referring to the destruction of much of the City by the great fire in 1666. His giants however only lasted a few years being made of wickerwork and pasteboard, in common with their sacrificial forebears, and were eventually destroyed by mice and rats.

They were replaced in 1708 by a magnificent pair of wooden statues carved by Captain Richard Saunders. These giants on whom the versions you will see today are based, lasted for over two hundred years before destruction in the blitz. They, in turn, were replaced by the pair which can now be seen in Guildhall, and which were carved by David Evans in 1953 as a gift to the City by Alderman Sir George Wilkinson who had been Lord Mayor in 1940, at the time of the destruction of the previous versions.

Gog and Magog symbolize one of many links between the modern business institutions of the City and its ancient history. This is but the most recent of their various re-births, which have long been symbolised by the phoenix on Magog's shield, representing return after fire. Today, the words of Thomas Boreman in his "Gigantick History" of 1741 are as appropriate as ever. He declared that "Corineus and Gogmagog were two brave giants who richly valued their honour and exerted their whole strength and force in the defence of their liberty and country; so the City of London, by placing these, their representatives in their Guildhall, emblematically declare, that they will, like mighty giants defend the honour of their country and liberties of this their City; which excels all others, as much as those huge giants exceed in stature the common bulk of mankind."