Griffin-feet.—Fairy Tales, Comtesse d’Aulnoy. The mark by which the Desert Fairy was known in all her metamorphoses.
Grimalkin.—A cat, the spirit of a witch. Any witch was permitted to assume the body of a cat nine times.
Grimwig.—Oliver Twist, Dickens. An irascible old gentleman, who hid a very kind heart under a rough exterior. He was always declaring himself ready to “eat his head” if he was mistaken on any point on which he passed an opinion.
Griselda (gri-zel´dä), The Patient.—A lady in Chaucer’s Clerk of Oxenford’s Tales, immortalized by her virtue and her patience. The model of womanly and wifely obedience, she comes victoriously out of cruel and repeated ordeals. The story of Griselda is first told in the Decameron. Boccaccio derived the incidents from Petrarch, who seems to have communicated them also to Chaucer, as the latter refers to Petrarch as his authority.
Grub Street, London, is thus described in Dr. Johnson’s dictionary: “Originally the name of a street near Moorfields, in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any production is called Grub street.” The name was freely used by Pope, Swift, and others.
Grundy.—“What will Mrs. Grundy say?” (What will our rivals or neighbors say?) The phrase is from Tom Morton’s Speed the Plough, but “Mrs. Grundy” is not introduced into the comedy as one of the dramatis personæ. The solicitude of Dame Ashfield, in this play, as to “what will Mrs. Grundy say?” has given the latter great celebrity, the interrogatory having acquired a proverbial currency.
Gudrun (gö-drön´).—Edda, Sämund Sigfusson. A lady, married to Sigurd by the magical arts of her mother and on the death of Sigurd to Atli (Attila), whom she hated for his cruelty, and murdered. She then cast herself into the sea, and the waves bore her to the castle of King Jonakun, who became her third husband.
Gudrun.—North-Saxon poem. A model of heroic fortitude and pious resignation. She was the daughter of King Hettel (Attila), and the betrothed of Herwig, king of Heligoland.
Guendolen (gwen´dō-len).—A fairy whose mother was a human being.
Guildenstern.—The name of a courtier in Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet.