Proceedings 43 
more probably ‘the snarler, growler, or grinner’t is supposed 
to recur in Grindelwald, so that it may have been a generic 
name. In early times Grindelwald must have been a savage and 
lonely retreat. The Grendel of Beowulf is located near Roes- 
kilde on the Danish island of Zealand. He dwells with his 
mother, who is almost as fierce and strong as himself, in a cav- 
ern which can only be reached by diving through the water. 
An outcast, hating and hated of men, and filled with rage at 
the sight and sound of the pleasures of civilised people,he haunts 
the misty moors and fens. At night it is his habit to raid the 
royal hall, and to slay one or other of the sleeping warriors by 
crushing him in his mighty arms. He bites and rends them on 
the spot, or carries them off to devour in his den. He carries 
no weapons, but confides in the strength of his grip}. Neither 
he nor his mother utters a word in any one’s presence, though 
there are opportunities for their speaking. We are not however 
told that they are speechless. When Grendel is attacked by the 
hero he utters loud shrieks. 
Such are some of the chief characteristics of the eoton or otunn 
Grendel. The story, though not the poem, was probably brought 
from the continent. It has of course been usually interpreted as 
a series of myths; e.g. Grendel is the raging sea, which bursts 
the dykes, and ravages the homes of men, or the pestilential fog 
of the fens, which steals at night into houses; but it seems far 
less forced to regard him as a primeval cannibalistic savage at 
war with men of a higher race. The only writer, so far as I know, 
who takes what I venture to call the common-sense view is the 
Rev. Stopford Brooke in his History of Early English Liter- 
ature. He writes (i. 121 f.), ‘It was necessary, since so much 
has been made of it, to discuss this story from the point of view 
of the Nature-mythologists; but I think that we may wander 
far, and with great vagueness, in that direction. 1 am much 
_ more disposed to refer the whole story of Grendel to such a tale 
as may have arisen all over the North in the remoter days of 
history. In very early times a general tale might have grown up 
+ So Mogk, of. cit., p.302. 
t His mother wields a dagger (seax) on one occasion, |. 1545. The 
word, which is cognate with Lat. saxum, has been thought to have 
originally (though hardly here) betokened a flint knife. 
