April 16. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



385. 



age, and is still covered in great part with a dark 

 and scanty vegetation, which is sufBciently dreary 

 except at those seasons when the brilliant colours 

 of the blooming heath and dwarf furze give it an 

 asjiect of remarkable beauty. 



Whether the present name of Greendale be a 

 mere corruption of the earliest name, or be not, in 

 fact, a restoration of it to its original meaning, is 

 a matter which I am not prepared to discuss. As 

 a general rule, a sound etymologist will not hastily 

 desert an obvious and trite explanation to go in 

 search of a more recondite import. He will not 

 have recourse to the devil for the solution of a 

 nodus, till he has exhausted more legitimate 

 sources of assistance. 



The " N. & Q." have readers nearer to the spot 

 in question than I am, who may, perhaps, be able 

 to throw some light on the subject, and inform us 

 whether Greendale still possesses the trace of any 

 of those natural features which would justify the 

 demoniacal derivation proposed by I. E. It must 

 not, however, be forgotten that three centuries 

 and a half of laborious culture bestowed upon the 

 property by the monks of Tor, must have gone 

 far to exorcise and reclaim it. E. S. 



Some years ago I was asked the meaning of 

 Grmdle or Grundle, as applied to a deep, narrow 

 watercourse at Wattisfield in Suffolk. The 

 Grundle lies between the high road and the 

 " Croft," adjoining a mansion which once belonged 

 to the Abbots of Bury. The clear and rapid 

 water was almost hidden by brambles and under- 

 wood ; and the roots of a row of fine trees stand- 

 ing in the Croft were washed bare by its winter 

 fury. The bank on that side was high and 

 broken ; the bed of the Grundle I observed to lie 

 above the surface of the road, on the opposite side 

 of which the ground rises rapidly to the table 

 land of clay. My fancy instantly suggested a 

 river flowing through this hollow, and the idea 

 was strengthened by the appearance of the land- 

 scape. The village stands on irregular ground, 

 descending by steep slopes into narrow valleys 

 and contracted meadows. I can well imagine that 

 water was an enemy or " fiend " to the first 

 settlers, and I was told that in winter the Grundle 

 is still a roaring brook. 



I find I have a Note that " in Charters, places 

 bearing the name Grendel are always connected 

 with water." F. C. B. 



Diss. 



ROGER OCTLAWE. 



(Vol.vii., p. 332.) 



Mb. Ellacombe will find some account of this 

 personage, who was Prior of Kilmainham, and for 

 several years served the office of Lord Justice 

 of Ireland, in Holinshed's Chronicles of Ireland^ 



sub anno 1325, et seq.: also in "The Annals 

 of Ireland," in the second volume of Gibson's 

 Camden, 3rd edition, sub eod. anno. He was 

 nearly related to the Lady Alice Kettle, and her 

 son William Utlawe, al. Outlaw ; against whom 

 that singular charge of sorcery was brought by 

 Richard Lederede, Bishop of Ossory. The account 

 of this charge is so curious that, for the benefit of 

 those readers of " N. & Q." who may not have 

 the means of referring to the books above cited, 

 I am tempted to extract it from Holinshed : 



" In these daies lived, in the Diocese of Ossorie, the 

 Ladie Alice Kettle, wliome the Bishop ascited to 

 purge hir selfe of the fame of inchantment and witch- 

 craft imposed unto hir, and to one Petronill and Basill, 

 hir complices. She was charged to have nightlie con- 

 ference with a spirit called Robin Artisson, to wliome 

 she sacrificed in the high waie nine red cocks, and nine 

 peacocks' eies. Also, that she swept the streets of 

 Kilkenuie betweene compleine and twilight, raking all 

 the filth towards tlie doores of hir sonne William Out- 

 law, murmuring and muttering secretlie with hir selfe 

 these words : 



" ' To the house of William my sonne 



Hie all the wealth of Kilkennie towne.' 



" At the first conviction, they abjured and did pe- 

 nance ; but shortlie after, they were found in relapse, 

 and then was Petronill burnt at Kilkennie : the other 

 twaine might not be heard of. She, at the hour of hir 

 death, accused the said William as privie to their sor- 

 ceries, whome the bishop held in durance nine weeks ; 

 forbidding his keepers to eat or to drinke with him, or 

 to speake to him more than once in the daie. But at 

 length, thorough the sute and instance of Arnold le 

 Powre, then seneschall of Kilkennie, he was delivered, 

 and after corrupted with bribes the seneschall to perse- 

 cute the bishop : so that he thrust him into prison for 

 three moneths. In rifling the closet of the ladie, they 

 found a wafer of sacramentall bread, having the divel's 

 name stamped thereon insteed of Jesus Christ's ; and a 

 pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon 

 which she ambled and gallopped thorough thicke and 

 thin when and in what maner she listed. This busi- 

 nesse about these witches troubled all the state of 

 Ireland the more ; for that the ladie was supported by 

 certeine of the nobilitie, and lastlie conveied over into 

 England ; since which time it could never be under- 

 stood what became of hir." 



Roger Outlawe, the Prior of Kilmainham, was 

 made Lord Justice for the first time in 1327. The 

 Bishop of Ossory was then seeking his revenge on 

 Arnold le Powre, for he had given informatioa 

 against him as being — 



" Convented and convicted in his conslstorie of certeine 

 hereticall opinions ; but because the beginning of 

 Powres accusation concerned the justice's kinsman, 

 and the bishop was mistrusted to prosecute his owne 

 wrong, and the person of the man, ratlier than the 

 fault, a daie was limited for the justifieing of the bill, 

 the partie being apprehended and respited thereunto. 

 This dealing the bishop (who durst not stirre out of 



