Towards the head of the procession you will see two stern but benevolent wicker giants. They are Gog and Magog, the traditional guardians of the City of London, and they have been carried in the Lord Mayor’s Show since the reign of Henry V.
Gog and Magog, or sometimes Gogmagog and Corineus, are descended from the pagan giants of early English pageantry and their origins lie in ancient legends of Britain’s beginning. The story goes that Diocletian – the Roman Emperor – had thirty-three wicked daughters. He managed to find thirty-three husbands to curb their unruly ways, but the daughters were not pleased, 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, and by coupling with demons they populated the the wild, windswept islands with a race of giants.
Some time later Brutus, the great-grandson of Æneas, fled the fall of Troy and by way of various scrapes arrived at the same islands. He too named them for himself, so we also know them as Britain. With him he brought his most able warrior and champion, Corineus, who faced the leader of the giant brood in single combat and eventually hurled him from a high rock to his death. The name of the giant was Gogmagog and the rock from which he was thrown became known as Langnagog or “The Giants Leap”. As a reward Corineus was given the western part of the island, which came to be called Cornwall after him. Brutus travelled to the east and founded the city of New Troy, which eventually came to be known as London.
The full version of this story can be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth century Historia Regum Brittaniae, a fanciful history that summarises contemporary efforts to connect Celtic royalty to the heroic world of the Greek myths. It was accepted as fact for centuries and will have had real meaning and importance to the mediaeval participants in the Mayor’s procession.
It is common for early peoples to regard the original inhabitants of their territory as giants. The memory of early struggles for land or survival is preserved in mythology and heroes became giants in the popular mind. They were often large and powerful men, and their physical strength and stature became exaggerated as their deeds pass into legend. The pagan giants were not ugly or huge, they were simply giant men inhabiting what appears to be a golden age of might and simplicity.
Our giants have no trace of the supernatural about them. They come from folk custom, deriving their names from 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.
The custom of carrying effigies and images at festivals is sometimes explained as an echo of the days when the same festival would have revolved around a human sacrifice. The victim was replaced with a symbolic representation, and as the old rites were incorporated into the Church, the sacrificial effigy came to represent the saint whose sacrifice was being celebrated. Whatever one thinks of this theory, the custom of carrying effigies at festivals was widespread in the middle ages both in England but on the continent, and the giants of pre-christian mythology were among them. The huge figures that you will see on the day of the Lord Mayor’s Show are just the latest versions of pagan effigies that go back thousands of years.
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. However they got there, we do know that by the reign of Henry V, there were carved giants guarding the gates of Guildhall. In 1554 they appeared in the Lord Mayor’s Show, and 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.
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 modeern versions 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. They were 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 Saunders 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 summarise the Londoner’s view as well as ever:
“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.”