Hurtaly

{{Short description|Legendary giant}}

Hurtaly or Hurtali is a legendary giant. He appears in Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais, as an ancestor of Gargantua.[https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Pantagruel/%C3%89dition_Marty-Laveaux,_1868/Chapitre_1] Text at French Wikisource. Hurtaly is there said to have survived Noah's Flood, by sitting astride Noah's Ark ("{{lang|fr|il estoit dessus à cheval, jambe de sà, jambe de là}}"). He is characterised as a {{lang|fr|beau mangeur des souppes}} ("a fine eater of soups"), and as the son of Faribroth, father of Nembroth.

A biography of RabelaisRabelais, by M. A. Screech (1979), p.45 states that Hurtaly is based on the Biblical Og, King of Bashan, and that Rabelais was paraphrasing the Pirkei of Rabbi Eliezar of Hyracanus.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). 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 [https://books.google.com/books?id=T3Q_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA388&lpg=PA388&dq=%22ha-palit%22+noah+ark#].