cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

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In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

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From:

mildred_of_midgard

A bit of digging, and I found that the main source on this guy's life is a children's book from the 19th century that was believed to be written by Cajanus himself, but was actually written by this guy:

Thomas Boreman (fl. 1730–1743) was one of the earliest English children's book publishers particularly dealing with animals...In 1742, he produced a book purporting to be the biography of Daniel Cajanus, The History of Cajanus, the Swedish Giant, from his Birth to the Present Time.

Unfortunately, since that book was reprinted in 2018, I can't easily get the 1742 version online, so I can't tell which details come from there. But if that's the most popular source on his life, I can see why there are authors asserting anecdotes as fact and other authors going, "Uhhh, we don't really know if that happened."

I am curious now, though, because I keep finding references to Boreman's account as that of a stereotypical "gentle giant," which doesn't fit with Selena's finding on how he took part in an illegal competition in which a man died...I mean, peer pressure is a thing, but I'm curious if that story comes from Boreman or not. Curse modern reprints for works that could easily be a 1742 pdf on Google Books, instead of $22 and out of stock on Amazon!

From:

luzula

Huh, interesting!

And how annoying! A case of something that in a way ought to increase access, but which in fact decreases it…

From:

mildred_of_midgard

a children's book from the 19th century

Gah, typo for 18th century, obviously.

From:

selenak

Look what I found....

ETA: And now, having browsed through the book, which is indeed very much written for children: wherever the "Cajanus in Prussia" part of the legend is from, it's not from Boreman's account. He has Cajanus (whom he refers to as Swedish exclusively, but okay, a Brit of his era would not necessarily distinguish) go directly from his home country to Britain, where he falls into the wrong hands and sells himself to the devil by allowing himself to be exhibited in fairs as "The Giant Puff". Basically, the way Boreman tells it:

- Cajanus is born to tall, though not gigantic parents, is a sweet and nice giant in the making
- falls in love with Dolla Rucina, a girl from his village
- they're ridiculed for the size difference, which is why Dolla Rucina's Dad eventually forbids the match
- heartbroken Cajanus decides to leave his home
- everyone tells him to go to the army, since the King of Sweden seeks brave soldiers to get Finnland back from the Russians (!)
- Cajanus does not want to become a soldier; he's not a brave giant like Goliath and Samson from the bible! On the contrary, he is afraid that if he goes to the army, he'll be put in the front row and get shot, and so despite everyone telling him to go to the army and that the recruiters are already after him anyway, he says DO NOT WANT, goes to the next ship and escapes
- and in England he falls into the wrong hands and starts life as a prisoner for filfthy lucre when he could have been a hero - learn from this, children!

So that still leaves us with the mystery as to where the story of him in Prussia comes from, and also him in Saxony, especially since German wiki claims the later one is testified to.

Edited Date: 2022-04-11 04:25 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

That link takes me to a login page, but this one works for me. Good find, thank you! I'm glad you're picking up my detective slack while all my free time gets sucked up by studying German. :)

whom he refers to as Swedish exclusively, but okay, a Brit of his era would not necessarily distinguish

Reminder to

cahn that Finland was not a sovereign nation at this point, as the font and coloring of this map shows.

since the King of Sweden seeks brave soldiers to get Finnland back from the Russians (!)

Ah, right, yes, 1742 is when Sweden and Russia are fighting over Finland! This is when James Keith, occupier of Finland on behalf of Elizaveta, is there meeting his future life partner Eva Merthen, and there's briefly an attempt to make future Peter III king of an independent Finland. Independent Finland didn't end up working out, though, so that idea died on the vine. (More details here.) Given the chronology, it doesn't surprise me this book is politically charged!

So that still leaves us with the mystery as to where the story of him in Prussia comes from, and also him in Saxony, especially since German wiki claims the later one is testified to.

Indeed! Given the summary I read of this book, I'm not surprised those details aren't in here. Thank you for reading and summarizing so we could know for sure.

From:

cahn

That's... okay, that's something else. I'm with you, Cajanus! I would have tried to escape rather than get Finland back from the Russians too!

But also "The Giant Puff" is a hilarious title :P

From:

selenak

Depending on whether Thomas Boreman really got any of this from Cajanus himself (who was still alive at the time of publication, and the book's narrator certainly claims he got from the horse's mouth), of course, and given that German wiki is sure that whether or not Cajanus had a stint in Prussia, he did live in Saxony as part of the Saxon cavalry before going to England, of course the question becomes: was it the life of a soldier as such or having to fight the Russians for the Swedes he did not want to do? I mean, I could see someone who doesn't want to fight join FW's Potsdam Giants because by the 1730s, certainly all of Europe knew FW loved them too much to actually use them in battle. But that's not true for August the Strong's troops. Anyway, I can see why Boreman left the entire German interlude out since it would ruin the moral of his story.