A.D. 972. Confirmation of lands to Pershore Abbey (Worcester) by King Edgar[[577]].
of Grindles bece swā þæt gemǣre ligð....
A.D. 972. Extract from an account of the descent of lands belonging to Westminster, quoting a grant of King Edgar[[578]].
andlang hagan to grendeles gatan æfter kincges mearce innan brægentan....
The property described is near Watling Street, between Edgware, Hendon, and the River Brent. It is a low-lying
district almost surrounded by the hills of Hampstead, Highgate, Barnet, Mill Hill, Elstree, Bushey Heath and Harrow. The bottom of the basin thus formed must have been a swamp[[579]]. What the "gate" may have been it is difficult to say. A foreign scholar has suggested that it may have been a narrow mountain defile or possibly a cave[[580]]: but this suggestion could never have been made by anyone who knew the country. The "gate" is likely to have been a channel connecting two meres—or it might have been a narrow piece of land between them—one of those enge ānpaðas which Grendel and his mother had to tread. Anyway, there is nothing exceptional in this use of "gate" in connection with a water-spirit. Necker, on the Continent, also had his "gates." Thus there is a "Neckersgate Mill" near Brussels, and the name "Neckersgate" used also to be applied to a group of houses near by, surrounded by water[[581]].
All the other places clearly point to a water-spirit: two meres, two pits, a mire and a beck: for the most part situated in low-lying country which must in Anglo-Saxon times have been swampy. All this harmonizes excellently with the fenfreoðo of Beowulf (l. 851). Of course it does not in the least follow that these places were named after the Grendel of our poem. It may well be that there was in England a current belief in a creature Grendel, dwelling among the swamps. Von Sydow has compared the Yorkshire belief in Peg Powler, or the Lancashire Jenny Greenteeth. But these aquatic monsters are not exactly parallel; for they abide in the water, and are dangerous only to those who attempt to cross it, or at any rate venture too near the bank[[582]], whilst Grendel and even his mother are capable of excursions of some distance from their fastness amid the fens.
Of course the mere-haunting Grendel may have been identified only at a comparatively late date with the spirit who struggles with the hero in the house, and flees below the earth in the folk-tale.
At any rate belief in a Grendel, haunting mere and fen, is clearly demonstrable for England—at any rate for the south and west of England: for of these place-names two belong to the London district, one to Wiltshire, one to Devonshire, two to Worcester and one to Stafford. The place-name Grendele in Yorkshire is too doubtful to be of much help. (Domesday Book, I, 302.) It is the modern village Grindale, four miles N.W. of Bridlington. From it, probably, is derived the surname Grindle, Grindall (Bardsley).