Abroad, the nearest parallel is to be found in Transsylvania, where there is a Grändels môr among the Saxons of the Senndorf district, near Bistritz. The Saxons of Transsylvania are supposed to have emigrated from the neighbourhood of the lower Rhine and the Moselle, and there is a Grindelbach in Luxemburg which may possibly be connected with the marsh demon[[583]].
Most of the German names in Grindel- or Grendel- are connected with grendel, "a bar," and therefore do not come into consideration here[[584]]: but the Transsylvanian "Grendel's marsh[[585]]," anyway, reminds us of the English "Grendel's marsh" or "mere" or "pit." Nevertheless, the local story with which the Transsylvanian swamp is connected—that of a peasant who was ploughing with six oxen and was swallowed up in the earth—is such that it requires considerable ingenuity to see any connection between it and the Beowulf-Grendel-tale[[586]].
The Anglo-Saxon place-names may throw some light upon the meaning and etymology of "Grendel[[587]]." The name has generally been derived from grindan, "to grind"; either directly[[588]], because Grendel grinds the bones of those he devours, or indirectly, in the sense of "tormentor[[589]]." Others would connect with O.N. grindill, "storm," and perhaps with M.E. gryndel, "angry[[590]]."
It has recently been proposed to connect the word with grund, "bottom": for Grendel lives in the mere-grund or grund-wong and his mother is the grund-wyrgin. Erik Rooth, who proposes this etymology, compares the Icelandic grandi, "a sandbank," and the common Low German dialect word grand, "coarse sand[[591]]." This brings us back to the root "to grind," for grand, "sand" is simply the product of the grinding of the waves[[592]]. Indeed the same explanation has been given of the word "ground[[593]]."
However this may be, the new etymology differs from the old in giving Grendel a name derived, not from his grinding or tormenting others, but from his dwelling at the bottom of the lake or marsh[[594]]. The name would have a parallel in the Modern English grindle, grundel, German grundel[[595]], a fish haunting the bottom of the water.
The Old English place-names, associating Grendel as they do with meres and swamps, seem rather to support this.
As to the Devonshire stream Grendel (now the Grindle or Greendale Brook), it has been suggested that this name is also
connected with the root grand, "gravel," "sand." But, so far as I have been able to observe, there is no particular suggestion of sand or gravel about this modest little brook. If we follow the River Clyst from the point where the Grindle flows into it, through two miles of marshy land, to the estuary of the Exe, we shall there find plenty. But it is clear from the charter of 963 that the name was then, as now, restricted to the small brook. I cannot tell why the stream should bear the name, or what, if any, is the connection with the monster Grendel. We can only note that the name is again found attached to water, and, near the junction with the Clyst, to marshy ground.
Anyone who will hunt Grendel through the shires, first on the 6-in. ordnance map, and later on foot, will probably have to agree with the Three Jovial Huntsmen