Hurtaly or Hurtali is a legendary

giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: '' gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

. He appears in ''

Gargantua and Pantagruel ''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagruel ...

'' by Rabelais, as an ancestor of

Gargantua ''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagruel ...

.
Text at French Wikisource. Hurtaly is there said to have survived

Noah's Flood The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is the Hebrew version of the universal flood myth. It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre- creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the micro ...

, by sitting astride

Noah's Ark Noah's Ark ( he, תיבת נח; Biblical Hebrew: ''Tevat Noaḥ'')The word "ark" in modern English comes from Old English ''aerca'', meaning a chest or box. (See Cresswell 2010, p.22) The Hebrew word for the vessel, ''teva'', occurs twice in t ...

("'"). He is characterised as a ' ("a fine eater of soups"), and as the son of Faribroth, father of Nembroth. A biography of Rabelais states that Hurtaly is based on the Biblical Og, King of Bashan, and that Rabelais was paraphrasing the ''Pirkei of Rabbi Eliezar of Hyracanus''.Printed a few years later (1544). Screech p.46 calls the derivation of ''Hurtaly'' from ''ha-palit'', 'he who survived' ''just possible''. He comments on the 'Jewish dimension' as an example of the 'erudition' of Rabelais, and non-'destructive' comic approach (p.47). This legend is also mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia of Adler and Singer (article "Og"), where it is also attributed to the Pirke of Rabbi Elieza

Notes

{{Gargantua and Pantagruel Fictional giants Rabelais characters Literary characters introduced in the 1530s