_Grendel_ means, originally, no more than a _bar_ or _rod_, or a palisade or lattice-work made of such bars or rods. Also a bar or bolt for fastening a door, or for closing a harbour. Middle-aged people at Zurich recollect when the old "Grindel" was still standing at the mouth of their river. This was a tremendous bar, by which the water-approach to their town could be closed against an enemy; who might otherwise pass from the Lake of Zurich down the river Limmat, into the heart of the town of Zurich. It was in Germany that this word lived longest as a common substantive. There is no known instance of it in Anglo-Saxon, other than in proper names, and of these I know no more than are already enumerated above; whereas, in the Middle High German, it is by no means uncommon. It occurs in a mystery on the resurrection preserved in this dialect, and edited by Ettmüller, 1851 (_Dat Spil fan der Upstandinge_). I cannot now find the line, but it is used there for "the gates of hell." Cf. also Ziemann's _Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch_, voc. GRINDEL. Grimm, in his _Mythology_, establishes a connexion between _Grendel_ and _Loki_, the northern half-deity half-demon, the origin of evil. He was always believed to have cunningly guided the shaft of Flöder the Blind, who, in loving sport, shot his brother Balder the Gay, the beloved of gods and men. So entered sorrow into the hitherto unclouded Asaland. Grimm draws attention to the circumstance that Loki is apparently connected with the widespread root which appears in English in the forms _lock_ and _latch_. Here is a very striking analogy, {308} and it is supported by an instance from the present German: _Höllriegel_ = vectis infernalis, brand of hell, is still recognised as = _teufel_; or for an old witch = devil's dam. And even in Latin documents we find the same idea represented. Thus, in a charter of King Edgar (_Cod. Dipl._, No. 487.), which begins with a recital of the fall of man, and the need of escaping the consequent misery, we have the following: "Quamobrem ego Eadgar, totius Britanniæ gubernator et rector, ut hujus miseriæ _repagulum_ quam protoplastus inretitus promeruit ... evadere queam, quandam ruris particulam ... largitus sum," &c. &c. As to the application of this name to localities, it seems to represent the same sentiment as the prefix of Giant, Grim, or Devil: and this sentiment would be that of the grand or awful in Nature, and mysterious or unaccountable in artificial works. I think we may then safely conclude, that all dikes, ditches, camps, cromlechs, &c., which have such titles attached to them, date from an age previous to the Saxons being in England. For example, if we did not know from other sources the high antiquity of Wayland Smith's Cave in Berkshire, we might argue that it was at least pre-Saxon; from the fact that the Saxons called it by the name of their Vulcan, and therefore that it appeared to them so mysterious as to be _dignus vindice nodus_.