jotun

Etymology

and Fasolt seize Freyja in an illustration by Arthur Rackham in The Rhinegold & the Valkyrie (1910), a retelling of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)]] Learned borrowing from Old Norse jǫtunn, from Proto-Germanic *etunaz (“giant”). The word is a doublet of ettin.

noun

1. (Norse mythology) A member of a race of giants who usually stand in opposition to the Æsir and especially to Thor.
   Some with disdain his reasons heard, / While others wisht the cause deferr'd. / Then Ormur spake, in speech of scorn, / Ormur, the friend of Asbiorn, / Who, daring singly to engage, / A jotun, proved his fatal rage. 1831, Walter Savage Landor, “Gunlaug”, in Gebir, Count Julian, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street, →OCLC, page 279
   When Christianity became the religion of the people the trolls gradually assumed something of the role formerly played by the more powerful Jotuns. 1908, The Elementary School Teacher, volume 8, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →OCLC, page 214
   When Odin was still young – before he had hanged himself on Yggdrasil and drunk from the Well of Wisdom – his eyes had fallen on a jotun named Loki. 1967, Ingri D'Aulaire; Edgar Parin D'aulaire, “Loki, the God of the Jotun Race”, in Norse Gods and Giants, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ISBN 978-0-385-04908-5; republished as D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths, New York, N.Y.: New York Review of Books, 2005, ISBN 978-1-59017-125-7, page 42
   The world in which the æsir and jötnar play out their struggle has its own set of place-names but is essentially recognizable as Scandinavia. There are rivers, mountains, forests, oceans, storms, cold weather, fierce winters, eagles, ravens, salmon, and snakes. 2001, John Lindow, “The Historical Background”, in Handbook of Norse Mythology (Handbooks of World Mythology), Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, page 2