Tlie East Riding and Beozvulf 333 



which parallels in detail may be found in 141 1 {nicorhusa fela^), 

 compared with 1427 (nicras), 141 6-7, 1422-3 (bloody water). 

 The nickers- (422, 575, 1427) must surely inhabit the sea, not a 

 lake or pool. 



(Sicilian) with I. 48 (Mantuan). Cf. my paper in Mod. Lang. Notes 17. 

 209-210, and above, p. 328. 



^ That goblins were ancientl}^ supposed to haunt caverns along the York- 

 shire coast is illustrated by the superstitious beliefs regarding a goblin 

 called Hob-thrush, or Hob-thrust, supposed to inhabit a cavern excavated 

 by the sea in the lias shale at Runswick Bay (Murray, p. 223), while on 

 Rudland Moor, 6 miles N. of Kirkby Moorside, there was formerly a high 

 cairn called Hobthrush's Ruck [heap], and Hob Hurst's House is the name 

 of a sepulchral mound near Hartington in Derbyshire (Murray, p. 267). 

 For the second element of the goblin's name, the A^. E. D. is inclined to 

 sanction a derivation from ON. purs (OE. &yrs), as suggested by Grimm; 

 for this word see Beow. 426, where it = Grendel, and N. E. D. under tJinrse; 

 cf. Atkinson, Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect, pp. 262-3. In Lancashire, 

 as late as 1700, a thurse-house or thurse-hole signified a hollow vault in 

 a rock or stony hill, which was looked on as enchanted (A''. E. D.). 

 According to Macquoid, About Yorkshire, pp. 349-350, Hob's Hole is a cave 

 70 feet long, and 20 wide, which the tide fills at high water ; and the demon 

 was accustomed to ofifer to travelers, overtaken by a driving storm at night, 

 the shelter of his cave, where he would leave them to perish by the incoming 

 tide. At Mulgrave Castle, near Whitby, they point out the grave of the 

 giant. Wade; and Kettleness (375 ft. high) was a favorite haunt of the 

 Yorkshire bogles (Murray, p. 223), for which see N. E. D. and Atkinson's 

 Glossary. 



^ There is undoubtedly a large element of truth in Brooke's theory (pp. 

 43. 77) that these nickers are pictured from seals, but I can not follow him 

 when he says 'the great seals and walruses,' or 'the tusked seals.' Walruses, 

 I believe, have never resorted to the English coast (cf. p. 2>2~) , and of 

 the tusked seal I find no trace anywhere. The Encyc. Brit, (nth ed., 24. 

 534-5) deals at length with only two species of seals which frequent the 

 shores of Britain — the common and the gray seal, the former 4-5 ft. long, 

 and the latter 8 ft. 'All the species frequently resort to sandy beaches, 

 rocks, or ice-floes, either to sleep or to bask in the sun ; ... in the 

 breeding season ... its [the gray seal's] favorite resort is the inner recess 

 of an ocean-cavern, beyond the reach of the tide.' This, then, confirms 

 Beozv. 1427, and in a large measure accounts for the scene of 1512 ff. 

 Homer, too, it will be remembered, calls his seals sea-beasts, or monsters of 

 ocean (Orf. 4. 421, 443, 446, 452), the same word (ktjtos) being elsewhere 

 (//. 13. 27; 20. 147; Od. 5. 421; 12. 97) more indefinitely employed (cf 

 scedcor, Bcozv. 1510, and see Bcozv. 540, 549, 558). The aquatic monster of 

 which we are told in the life of Columba (2. 28: Reeves, pp. 55-6) was 

 certainly not a seal, but rather a shark, since he bit a swimmer most 



