Giants....

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Hammond and Scull, in their comments on "The passing of the grey company", quote an explanation of the name Tarlang's Neck:

Well, especially this I would call metaphore. Or a Gondorian myth, more likely - although we are in mythical world, this one would sound to me quite much of a created myth (in opposite to reality).

But this does not change the fact the Giants, as TM said, do not seem to be much of a metaphore.

Originally Posted by Mattius

But is this literal or metaphroical? Perhaps 'seeing' the giants throwing stones is the boulders crashing down the mountain and the 'laughing' is the sounds they makes mixed with howling wind and rain.

The howling, perhaps, if it stood alone (the thing I mentioned from On Fairy-Stories has something to do with laughter of Thor and the sound of storm). But the fact that Bilbo saw the giants, well, you could tell that he saw what his imagination created there or something like that, but in the context of the Hobbit, I think not.
Even if not, I find Gandalf's talk about "finding a decent giant to close the door", as TM pointed, quite good sign of the true existence of giants. Where Gandalf might or might not have joked about it (did he really want to go and persuade a giant to do it?), he certainly wouldn't speak of going to something that does not exist.