Hurtaly or Hurtali is a legendary giant. He appears in Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais, as an ancestor of Gargantua.[1] Hurtaly is there said to have survived Noah's Flood, by sitting astride Noah's Ark ("French: il estoit dessus à cheval, jambe de sà, jambe de là").[1] He is characterised as a French: beau mangeur des souppes ("a fine eater of soups"), and as the son of Faribroth, father of Nembroth.
A biography of Rabelais[2] states that Hurtaly is based on the Biblical Og, King of Bashan, and that Rabelais was paraphrasing the Pirkei of Rabbi Eliezar of Hyracanus.[3] This legend is also mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia of Adler and Singer (article "Og"), where it is also attributed to the Pirke of Rabbi Eliezar https://books.google.com/books?id=T3Q_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA388&lpg=PA388&dq=%22ha-palit%22+noah+ark#.