Hurtaly or Hurtali is a legendary giant. He appears in Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais, as an ancestor of Gargantua.[1] Hurtaly is there said to have survived Noah's Flood, by sitting astride Noah's Ark ("il estoit dessus à cheval, jambe de sà, jambe de là").[1] He is characterised as a beau mangeur des souppes ("a fine eater of soups"), and as the son of Faribroth, father of Nembroth.

A biography of Rabelais[2] states that Hurtaly is based on the Biblical Og, King of Bashan, and that Rabelais was paraphrasing the Pirkei of Rabbi Eliezar of Hyracanus.[3] 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 Eliezar .

Notes

  1. 1 2 Text at French Wikisource.
  2. ↑ Rabelais, by M. A. Screech (1979), p.45
  3. ↑ 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).
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