Giants invade Nantes

A few days ago, in the ancient city of Nantes, on the shores of the Atlantic estuary of the Loire, the citizens discovered—on the square in front of the great 15th-century cathedral—a strange apparition.

A huge block of melting ice contained what appeared to be the dormant form of a giant black dog. Within a few hours, the sun had melted a hole in the ice, and the beast's snout appeared.

By this time, the people of Nantes had heard that the great black dog was named Xolo, and that he came from a mysterious region of Mexico, inhabited by giant creatures. By the end of the afternoon, the dog's entire body had escaped from its tomb of ice, and the disjointed mass was laid to rest on a pile of stuffed bags.

Early the next morning, Xolo woke up in the company of his mistress, Little Girl Giant.

Soon, Xolo and Little Girl Giant were parading through the streets of Nantes, surrounded by noisy throngs of onlookers.

Elsewhere in the city, they met up with another giant, the Peasant.


The street-theatre company behind these spectacular happenings, named Royal de Luxe, was created in Provence by Jean-Luc Courcoult in 1979, but it has been installed in Nantes for the last two decades, and funded by the city.

The Socialist mayor of Nantes, Jean-Marc Cayrault, is excited like a child by all this noise and action, and he's tweeting us constantly about what's happening, and sending out photos.

It's funny, the way we're fascinated by carnival giants. I've often wondered whether there might be some truth about the fabulous biblical stories of the divine giants known as Nephilim, who used to screw our ordinary womenfolk.

In those days as well as later, when the sons of the gods had intercourse with the daughters of mortals and children were born to them, the Nephilim were on the earth; they were the heroes of old, people of renown.
— Genesis 6:4

Maybe we recognize the carnival figures as archaic long-lost companions, or maybe even remote ancestors. And who knows: maybe, one of these days, advanced DNA testing will reveal that some of us carry Nephilim genes, putting us in a race apart from ordinary mortals. Now, if I were to follow up those lines of thought, and meditate upon them while smoking grass, maybe I would end up as crazy as a Creationist, ready to jump aboard Noah's Ark.