What Happened To The Giants Poem by David Welch

You may have heard folks speak about giants,
it certain circles that some call ‘plain nuts! '
among cryptozoological types
they're speculated upon rather much.

And every few months on the internet,
at least if you're into that type of thing,
you see claims of a giant skeleton,
that ‘smart people' are always downplaying.

They say the bones are misidentified,
that they're dinosaurs or wooly mammoths,
and sure as they sound talking on TV,
they don't realize that they've swung and they've missed.

You see I can tell you about giants,
because, after all, I descend from them,
it's not a question of if giants lived,
in the end it's just a question of when.

The human story is a complex one,
with countless species branching off the trunk,
the Denisovans, hobbits of Flores,
neandertals and countless other ones.

And that's just the ones that we know about,
from the few fossils we've pried from the ground,
amidst this great web of human story
the subspecies of giants can be found.

They probably came out of Africa,
most of humanity started that way,
from the tales I keep, they stood at nine feet,
and from the motherland started to stray.

Or maybe the ice ages made their size,
since it did so with other mammals then;
giant bears, giant wolves, things of that sort,
why could it not do the same to mere men?

They spread out across northern Eurasia,
over the land bridges to the new world grand,
doing what most hunter-gatherers did,
hunting the herds that moved across the land.

For eons they lived as others did live,
stone tools and fire, hide shelters or caves,
like neandertals and other humans
they beat the odds being smart, being brave.

You still hear about them in the legends,
their interactions with out modern kind,
the Sioux claimed they fought with ‘red-haired giants, '
for nearly a whole millennium's time.

South American had similar tales,
some claim they still live in Afghanistan,
Europe had Jack fighting giants in myth,
it's a figure all cultures understand.

It's said folklore has a kernel of truth,
that history becomes myth over years,
forgetting that these are not mere stories,
that the giants once were actually here.

And just like the other human species
the giants met with a specific end,
thanks to the newest species of human,
and they all interacted with them.

Yes, I'm talking of homo sapiens,
the last human species that still remains,
when they burst out of their African home
nothing ever would again be the same.

You saw it plain with the neandertals,
the older species just could not compete,
modern humans pushed them out of their lands,
and more than often with them they did sleep.

Until the neandertals were absorbed,
small bits of their genes survive to this day,
the Denisovans probably went the same,
since we still find some of their DNA.

Would it not be the same for the giants?
They had no culture, their language was plain,
and biology was not on their side,
on that last point you must let me explain.

You see due to a giant's nine-foot size
their gestation took a rather long spell,
fourteen months if the old tales are correct,
can you imagine? It' must've been hell!

And like thyroid giants, or large dog breeds,
the extra size brought health problems, short life,
that's why giants never filled up the Earth,
they bred too slowly, the margins were tight.

Meanwhile the new modern-human breed
could pump out children in only nine months,
even if their women lay with giants,
which I can tell you happened more than once.

Of course the children of such matings were
smaller than their giant fathers in size,
but often became great leaders themselves,
combining great strength with a human mind.

Besides the instances of cross-breeding,
the modern human adapted quite quick,
lived in larger numbers, and fought that way,
giants had never really learned such tricks.

As the generations ticked slowly on
the giants' numbers slowly trickled down,
like neandertals they were just abosorbed,
but survived long enough to win renown.

You saw one in the Thardid Jimbo tales
of Australia's aboriginal lore,
you heard of one in King Bran the Blessed,
go ask the Welsh if you want to know more.

Of course you know of famous Goliath,
left the Taurus to join the Philistines,
the last surviving member of his tribe,
only for David to strike him down clean.

The last of the giants, surprisingly,
inhabited the American sphere,
rhe Inca, Aztecs, and Maya knew them,
some they worked with, others inside fear.

The last pure-bred giant that we know of
lived with the Aztecs, Tzilicatzin,
fought against Cortez at Tenochtitlan,
killed a dozen before shots did him in.

Now their have been sightings since that dark time,
like Bigfoot the giant myth will not die,
but as to the flesh-and-blood giant race
it is unlikely one will ever rise.

But as I explained, much loving was done,
and giant genes still remain in mankind,
like neandertals they hide in plain sight,
and one-day mainstream science will go find

a skeleton that they cannot conceal,
they'll find my ancestors, decode their genes,
realize that some of it still carries on,
they'll win their Nobels, they'll strut and they'll preen.

It's funny because I could have told them
that you see the giant genes everywhere,
most folks you see playing pro basketball
have a giant in their pedigree somewhere.

Volleyball players show all the signs too,
and most humans beyond seven-foot tall,
looking back at early modern humans
you just didn't see heights like that at all.

And you wonder how I may know all this,
how I can speak of what most think a myth?
It's simple, Tzilacatzin had him a wife,
I am a living descendant of his.

And after the Spanish conquered that land
his wife learned Spanish and wrote what she knew,
my family has kept this for centuries,
we tell people, but believers are few.

I know many of you won't believe this,
my family says that it's not the right time,
but for those who listen, know we're out there,
giants have never really left mankind.