This huntin' doesn't pay,
But we'n powler't up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day.
But, if some conclusions, although scanty, can be drawn from place-names in which the word grendel occurs, nothing can be got from the numerous place-names which have been thought to contain the name Bēow. The clearest of these is the on Bēowan hammes hecgan, which occurs in the Wiltshire charter of 931. But we can learn nothing definite from it: and although there are other instances of strong and weak forms alternating, we cannot even be quite certain that the Beowa here is identical with the Beow of the genealogies[[596]].
The other cases, many of which occur in Domesday Book are worthless. Those which point to a weak form may often be derived from the weak noun bēo, "bee": "The Anglo-Saxons set great store by their bees, honey and wax being indispensables to them[[597]]."
Bēas brōc, Bēas feld (Bewes feld) occur in charters: but here a connection with bēaw, "horsefly," is possible: for parallels, one has only to consider the long list of places enumerated by Björkman, the names of which are derived from those of beasts,
birds, or insects[[598]]. And in such a word as Bēolēah, even if the first element be bēow, why may it not be the common noun "barley," and not the name of the hero at all?
No argument can therefore be drawn from such a conjecture as that of Olrik, that Bēas brōc refers to the water into which the last sheaf (representing Beow) was thrown, in accordance with the harvest custom, and in the expectation of the return of the spirit in the coming spring[[599]].
C. THE STAGES ABOVE WODEN IN THE WEST-SAXON GENEALOGY