OP20: Hagrid's Tale – Harry Potter Lexicon

“Giants?” ... “Who said anythin’ abou’ giants? Who yeh bin talkin’ to? Who’s told yeh what I’ve — who’s said I’ve bin — eh?”
-- Rubeus Hagrid (OP20)

Hagrid returns and tells the story of his journey with Madame Maxime to the land of the giants, where they were unsuccessful in gaining an alliance.

Calendar and Dates

The entire chapter takes place the evening of the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, 7 November, 1995 (see previous chapter). The next chapter confirms that the meeting with Hagrid took place on a Saturday.

Interesting facts and notes

This chapter is our first source of real information about the giants.

out the way, Fang… out the way, yeh dozy dog…'

dozy = lazy, used as slang to mean "foolish"

He walked across to the enormous wooden table that stood in the middle of his cabin and twitched aside a tea towel that had been lying on it. Underneath was a raw, bloody, green-tinged steak slightly larger than the average car tire.

Dragon meat, according to Hagrid a moment later.

We chanced a bit o' magic after that an' it wasn' a bad journey.

From Hagrid's brief remarks about the journey to the giants' camp, we may be able to work out an approximate location. Since Hagrid and Maxime lost (or at least, believed they'd lost) the tail in Dijon, at this point in their journey it may be reasonable to assume that they were travelling more or less directly to their destination.

Ran inter a couple o' mad trolls on the Polish border an' I had a sligh' disagreement with a vampire in Minsk -

Minsk is the capital of Belarus, which borders Poland on the east. Consequently, it seems like a fair deduction that the giants' camp lies somewhere east of Poland's border with Belarus and probably north. Since the giants' camp is in the mountains, it isn't likely to lie in Belarus itself, which is relatively flat and marshy. Consequently, it seems like a fair deduction to say that the giants' camp probably lies somewhere in Russia.

Exceptional character moments

Hagrid's observation that despite her usual elegance of dress, Olympe never complained once about the long, hard journey to the giants.

Umbridge, who speaks to Hagrid as though he were mentally afflicted.

Memorable lines

'Never known kids like you three fer knowin' more'n yeh oughta,' he muttered, splashing boiling water into three of his bucket-shaped mugs. 'An' I'm not complimentin' yeh, neither. Nosy, some'd call it. Interferin'.'

'And you found them?' said Hermione in a hushed voice.
'Well, they're not that difficult ter find, ter be honest,' said Hagrid. 'Pretty big, see.'

"So why don't Muggles -?"
"They do," said Hagrid darkly. "On'y their deaths are always put down ter mountaineerin' accidents, aren' they?"

In any case, giants like Karkus - overload 'em with information an' they'll kill yeh jus' to simplify things.

"Er - I don' want ter be rude," said Hagrid, staring at her, "but who the ruddy hell are you?"