Giants....

[Selmo]

Originally Posted by Raynor

After all, the woses thought that the numenoreans ate stone which is another statement which is, obviously, metaphorical.

I don't think that the the Woses thought that Numenorians ate stone or that they were making a metaphorical point. It was simply a joke among the Woses.

When I was three years old and frightened by thunder, my father told me that noise was made by giants playing skittles in the clouds. He wasn't trying to teach me a truth in metaphorical form, he was making a joke to ease my fears. I'll take Gandalf's comments on giants in The Hobbit in the same way.
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[Mattius]

I always thought of their mention as metaphorical. When the Dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo are on the mountain path in the storm Thorin (I think) mentions that he doesn't want to be picked up by a giant and kicked like a football. Perhaps they were once real creatures and by the time of the Hobbit were mythological and used in reference to such situations when there were avalanches in the mountains.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I always thought of their mention as real. When the Dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo are on the mountain path in the storm, Thorin indeed mentions that he doesn't want to be picked up by a giant and kicked like a football. But few sentences before Bilbo takes a peek out of their shelter and sees the giants throwing stones, and they all hear them laughing*.

But I don't believe they were on Caradhras (as I said before).

*If some of you read On Fairy-stories, it might also be of some concern what Tolkien says about Thor...

[Mattius]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I always thought of their mention as real. When the Dwarves, Gandalf and Bilbo are on the mountain path in the storm, Thorin indeed mentions that he doesn't want to be picked up by a giant and kicked like a football. But few sentences before Bilbo takes a peek out of their shelter and sees the giants throwing stones, and they all hear them laughing*.

But I don't believe they were on Caradhras (as I said before).

*If some of you read On Fairy-stories, it might also be of some concern what Tolkien says about Thor...

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 Might]

Giants existed, and that's more then clear.
In "The Hobbit", talking about Beorn's origin, Gandalf clearly says he heard him swear he would take revenge and return into the mountains, further speculationg he was perhaps a descendant of the olf bears living in that area before the giants came.
I doubt he means, before the avalanches or landslides or whatever started.
Also, Gandalf thinks about asking one of the nicer giants to help him and block the entrance to the tunnel leading to Goblin Town with a stone.
Clearly, they are not metaphores for anything.
They are however predecessors of the Ents in Tolkien's writings and this can be easily noticed by looking at this change from The Hobbit to LotR.

Selmo, as far as your post is concerned, I think I must disagree. I doubt the woses were trying to make a joke with that.
This description of Numenoreans as stone-eaters is clearly made out of awe, wonder and perhaps respect for the way they learned to use the stone to build their cities.

[Raynor]

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

Originally Posted by LotR Companion, page 536

It is said that when "in ancient days" some giants were building the White Mountains as a wall to keep Men out of their land by the Sea, one of them, called Tarlang, tripped and fell on his face as he was carrying a heavy load of rocks on his head, he broke his neck and was killed. The other giants used his body to complete the wall at that point, but left his neck lying southward, leading to the three mountains of the spur: Dor Tarlang, Tarlang's Head, Cul Veleg, Bigload and Cul Bin, Little Load.

[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.