The Wonder of our times: BEING A true and exact Relation of the Body of a mighty Giant digged up at Brock ford Bridge near Ipswich in Suffolk, this present November 1651. his height 10. foot, his Head as big as half a bushel; with a description of the several parts of his body, and manner of his interring.  
Certified in a Letter from a Gentleman in the Country, to his Brother (a merchant) in London.  
London: Printed by R. Austin, for W. Ley, at PAUL's Chain. 1651.   

TO write of wonders in this Age, is a thing most men look after: but before I give you a Declaration of the wonder of this Age, let us compare it with some former ages, and we shall be convinced of the truth of this our relation. We read of sundry Giants that inhabited this Isle of Great Britain, many mighty men of stature, especially in the North, where men most commonly are of greatest stature, as Starcater, Hartben, Angrin, Arverode, of whom Saxo johannes magus Olaus magnus makes mention, whose bones do yet remain to be seen as rare miracles of nature; some of these in their life time were able to lift up a vessel of liquor of a thousand weight, or an horse, or an ox, and cast it on their shoulders; their very women, some of them, have come somewhat near them in strength of body; some of these lived in the time of Olaus, Anno 1500. we read of Corineus and Gogmagot, whom some report to be King of this Isle, who fought a combat hand to hand till one of them was slain; Hanvill in his Architrenion makes the later to be eighteen foot height; Corineus the Dane enjoyed Cornwall upon the Conquest. Be pleased to look back and reflect on the Scripture, 1 Sam. 17.5. etc. we find Goliab the Philistine whom David entountred, to be above nifie foot in height, whose shirt of male of weight 1250. ounces of brass, which is, 104. pound, and of Og the King of Basan, Deut. 3. who was the last of the race of Giants that was left in the Land of Promise to be overcome of the Israelites, whose iron bed was showed for a wonder at Rabbah, a City of the Ammonites, containing nine cubits; although they were in the beginning of the world, yet we have had those of later times, that have have paralleled them: to come down to Christian Writers, if we will believe S. Austin in Civitate Dei, Lib. 15. Cap. 9 how he saw the tooth of a man as big as a hundred of his own: and johannes Bocate in his 68 Cap. 4. Book, saith that in the Cave of a mountain not far from Drepanum a Town of Sicily, called Erix, the body of an exceeding high Giant was discovered, three of whose teeth did weigh an hundred ounces, which is eight pound and four ounces: he saith moreover, the forepart of his scull was able to contain many bushels of wheat, and by the proportion of his thigh, his body was judged to be two hundred cubits high: this miracle of nature is yet to be seen in the Church of Drepanum in Sicily in perpetual memory of his greatness: his body was found upon this occasion as some were going to dig, to lay the foundation of an house, the miners found a great vault, they found the body of a mighty man sitting in a Cave, of whose greatness they were sore afraid, they ran away and made an outcry in the City, how there sat a man in such a place as great as an hill, the people hearing this news ran out with clubs and staves as if to fight a battle; and three hundred entering the Cave they forthwith saw he was dead, and yet sat as if he had been alive, having a staff in his hand, compared by mine Author to the mast of a Ship, which being touched fell to dust with his body, saving three teeth, and part of his scull, and one of his thigh-bones.  
There was a carcase laid bare in the year 1170. in England upon the shore, where the beating of the shore had washed away the earth from the stone wherein it lay, and when it was taken up, it contained fifteen foot in length, as our Chronicles and Records affirm, and johannes Leland Masieus Lib. 14. Trivet.  
At Perth at this day in Scotland the skeleton of a man is to be seen, called john per Antiphrasin, being fourteen foot in length, which divers affirm that have beheld the same, and (as Hector Boetius saith) he did put his whole arm into one of his haunch bones.  
Sir Thomas Eliot reports, a carcase was taken up at Ivy Church near Salisbury almost fourteen foot long.  
Grafton reports of one whose shinbone contained six foot, his scull so great it contained five pecks of wheat, and by consequence his body must needs be twenty four foot long.  
Goropius reports of a Giant in Brabant, whose bones were seventeen or eighteen cubits in length.  
Gervasius Tilbiriensis Head-marshall to the King of Arles, reports in his Chronicle, that at Isoricum in the Suburbs of Paris, he saw the body of a man that was twenty foot long, besides the head and the neck which was missing, and not found; the owner perhaps might be beheaded for some notable trespass committed in times past.  
Leland in Com. Brit. reports that in Whitton Parish, not far from the Chapel of the Moor, six miles by East from Carlisle, a coffin was found, and therein the bones of a man of incredible greatness.  
The Greek Writers make mention of Andronicus the Emperor, who lived 1183. and was ten foot in height, that is three foot higher than the King's great Porter.  
Thus have I deduced from the beginning of the world, as near as I can, those memorable Giants, or mighty tall men, and those no fables, but proved from good authority.  
Some will by no means believe that there were in former eimes any such things as Giants, but such their erroneous opinions will be apparently confuted in the following relation, which for truth hath the confirmation of some hundreds of eye-witnesses, as you may read in the letter ensuing.  
Loving Brother,  
I Though it worthy my writing to you, what this other day was discovered to many here, the like of which few of our Predecessors have seen. For here, near the place of your Nativity, at Brockford Bridge, at the end of the street towards Ipswich, by the gravelly way, between the Lands lace (our cousin Rivets) john Vice and another were digging gravel in the Road, and a little within the earth found the carcase of a Giant (for so I think I may term him) for from the top of his scull to the bottom of the bones of his feet was ten foot of Assize, and overthwart his breast, from the ultimate of one shoulder to the other, as he lay interred, and before stirring, was four foot. His scull of the bigness near of an half bushel; the circumference of one of his thigh bones of the bigness of a middle sized woman's waist, the neither jawbone had in it firmly fixed sixteen teeth of an extraordinary bigness; the other none.  
When the finding of this wonder of men in our time, was noised abroad, many of the people of the adjacent Towns resorted to see it, and divers out of more folly, I think, than discretion, broke the Skeleton to gain part, or small pieces of the bones, to brag they had part of him. Several are the opinions of men in judging what time this man lived; some th●nk him to be a Dane, others imagine he might belong to Prince Authur; but for my part, I shall suspend my judgement, and leave it to wiser men: only thus much I think I may say, that there hath not lived such a man in England this hundred years: his head lay near a quarter of a yard lower than his feet, and the superficies of the earth was worn down within near an handful of his shin bones. He was buried North and South, his head to Ipswich-ward, and his feet towards Norwich.  
It may be you may say, I might have employed my time better than in troubling you with this matter, but I assure you of the truth of this, and the wonder of the thing commanded me to impart thus much unto you.  
Your loving brothert, I.G. Novemb. 3. 1651.