The Jötunn/Giants

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Proto-Germanic: *Antjaz, *Etunaz ("eater"), *Fembula, *Þurisaz.
Western Germanic: Thurse, Reus (Dutch), Riese (German), Hüne (German) Hune (Dutch).
Northern Germanic: Etin, Ettin, Joten, Jotun, Jötunn, Riis.

Giants appear in almost every ancient mythology, they represent the untamed forces of nature and are often seen as extremely strong, agressive, and evil, in most cultures giants were seen as dumb creatures but in the Germanic culture the giants were considered to be very wise because of their old age.
All giants have originated from Ymir, the ancient giant from the beginning of time who was killed by Odin, Vili, and Vé, the Germans also believed that several other creatures evolved from giants like for instance the Trolls; who are often smaller than the giants and mainly live in forests, though they can also live in the sea or underground, their hight varies from 3 meters (10 foot) to 12 meters (39 foot) and the big ones sometimes even have trees growing on their heads and noses, they also have moss in their hair, warts on their noses, and cow-like tails, they don't wear shoes and sometimes eat humans, they are also able to speak, most trolls like harassing travellers and people who go too deep into the forest but there are also friendly trolls.
Other creatures that are believed to have originated from giants are Kobolds or Goblins; little Dwarf-like creatures who live underground.
In Germanic mythology most giants are evil, they are the embodyments of chaos and destruction and the enemies of humans and gods alike.
During Ragnarök the giants will choose the side of the forces of evil but there are also good ones and most of the Germanic gods even have giant blood in their veins.
The most common type of giant in Germanic mythology is the Frost Giant, though there are also Fire Giants, Storm Giants, Mountain Giants, and other types.
Giants are also very greedy and love eating; the word "Ettin" even means "eater", some giants can not endure sunlight and will turn to stone if they are exposed to it (there was a similar belief about Dwarves), it was even believed that some mountains were once giants that had been turned to stone, an example is the Jotunheim mountain ridge in Norway.
Giants are the incarnation of the destructive forces of nature, the conflict of order against chaos, life against death, creation against destruction; they represent our deepest fears and illustrate our desires to control something that is beyond our control.

The skeleton of a giant found in the Netherlands The Germans beleived that the giants live in Jötunheim, one of the nine worlds and the home of the giants, but they also believed that the giants once lived in the human world during ancient times.
This belief is often regarded as nothing more than folklore, but there is some indirect proof that the giants once really (physically) existed in the human world, throughout the world there are many cultures and religions that believe in giants and thousands of years ago the Earth's climate was much warmer and most organisms were at least three times as big as they are nowadays.
All over the world there have been archeological findings of human-like skeletons that were 3 meters (10 foot) tall, some of them even had hornlike knobs on their skull and a double row of teeth, a giant mummie with red hair has also been found in 1911 in Lovelock, Nevada, USA.
Most of this skeletons have later mysteriously disappeared but some of them are stored by various museums all over the world, in Scotland a grave was found with a 3 meter tall body of a Viking in it, researchers believe that this person may have suffered from acromegaly, a disease that causes extreme body growth, but in the Netherlands the bodies of an entire giant family have been found that reject this theory:
An American tourist searching for fossils near Den Haag (The Hague) found a very extraordinary fossil; the petrified but intact remains of a human skeleton that was 2.5 times as big as a modern human, when Dutch scientists arrived on the scene they found more of this giant skeletons including some sort of settlement where this people have probably lived, after further research the scientists concluded that the skeletons were over 7500 years old (approximately 5500BC) and that they died of unnatural causes, among them were also 2 children who were already bigger than a modern adult human.
The body structure of the giants was different from that of modern humans and scientists concluded that the adults were between 20 and 39 years old when they died and that the children were between 9 and 14 years old.
The skeletons are nowadays in the museum of Bergen in Norway.