Gog and Magog

Gog and Magog are the guardian giants of the City of London, the last survivors of a race of giants said to have inhabited Britain — or Albion — before the coming of man. In the legendary history popularised by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brutus of Troy and his companion Corineus came to these shores and overcame the native giants; the greatest was hurled into the sea, and the survivors set to labour as porters at the gate of the founders' new city.

For centuries their effigies have stood guard at London's Guildhall, and carved figures of the two giants are carried through the streets in the Lord Mayor's Show, a custom recorded since the fifteenth century. The wickerwork and wooden giants have been destroyed and remade many times — lost in the Great Fire, shattered in the Blitz — and always restored, for the city regards them as its protectors. Gog and Magog bind London to the oldest layer of British legend: the myth of the giants of Albion who walked the land before history began.