Corineus
![One of two wooden figures displayed in the Guildhall in London, carved by Captain Richard Saunders in 1709, replacing earlier wicker and pasteboard effigies which were traditionally carried in the Lord Mayor's Show. They represented Gogmagog and Corineus, but were later known as Gog and Magog. Both figures were destroyed during the London Blitz in 1940; new figures were carved in 1953.](/Images/godic/202501/06/Corineus_the_Giant_in_Guildhall_18594356.png")
Corineus, in medieval British legend, was a prodigious warrior, a fighter of giants, and the eponymous founder of Cornwall.
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (1136), he led the descendants of the Trojans who fled with Antenor after the Trojan War and settled on the coasts of the Tyrrhenian Sea. After Brutus, a descendant of the Trojan prince Aeneas, had been exiled from Italy and liberated the enslaved Trojans in Greece, he encountered Corineus and his people, who joined him in his travels. In Gaul, Corineus provoked a war with Goffarius Pictus, king of Aquitania, by hunting in his forests without permission, and killed thousands single-handedly with his battle-axe. After defeating Goffarius, the Trojans crossed to the island of Albion, which Brutus renamed Britain after himself. Corineus settled in Cornwall, which was then inhabited by giants. Brutus and his army killed most of them, but their leader, Gogmagog, was kept alive for a wrestling match with Corineus. The fight took place near Plymouth, and Corineus killed him by throwing him over a cliff.