FIENDS and MONSTERS.—The community of belief, between the Germans of this island, of the continent, and their Scandinavian kinsmen, does not appear to have been confined to the beneficent gods of fertility or warlike prowess. In the noble poem of Beowulf we are made acquainted with a monstrous fiend, Grendel, and his mother, supernatural beings of gigantic birth, stature and disposition, voracious and cruel, feeding upon men, and from their nature incapable of being wounded with mortal weapons. The triumph of the hero over these unearthly enemies forms the subject of one half the poem. But Grendel, who, from the characteristics given above, may at once be numbered among the rough, violent deities of nature, the Jotnar[706] of the North and Titans of classical mythology, is not without other records: in two or three charters we find places bearing his name, and it is remarkable that they are all connected more or less with water, while the poem describes his dwelling as a cavern beneath a lake, peopled with Nicors and other supernatural beings of a fiendish character. The references are Grindles pyt[707], Grindles bece[708], and Grendles mere[709]. Grimm, by a comparison of philological and other data, identifies Grendel with the Norse Loki, the evil-bringer, and in the end destroyer of the gods[710]. The early converted Anglosaxons who possessed another devil to oppose to the Almighty in the Ragnaravkr[711], could easily reconcile themselves to the destruction of Grendel by an earthly hero; although the ancient heathendom breaks out in the supernatural powers attributed to the latter, and which placing him very near the rank of the gods, induce a belief that Beówulf contains only the shadow of an older myth which may have been current far beyond the limits of this island[712]. It will be sufficient to call attention to the many German tales in which the devil’s mother figures as a principal actor, nay to our own familiar expression, _the devil’s dam_, to show how essential this characteristic of the fiend was: the devil of the Church had certainly no mother; but the old Teutonic evil spirit had, and Loki and Grendel are alike in this. Even the religious view, which naturally shaped itself to other influences, could not escape the essential heathendom of this idea: the devil who is so constant an agent in the Anglosaxon legends, has, if not a mother, at least a father, no less than Satan himself; but Satan lies bound in hell, as Loki lies bound, and it is only as his emissary and servant that the devil his son[713] appears on earth, to tempt and to destroy. In Cædmon, the legend of St. Andrew, Juliana, Gúðlác, etc., it is always the devil’s son and satellite who executes his work on earth, and returns to give an account of his mission to him that sent him. ----- Footnote 706: In Beówulf he is continually called Eoten. Footnote 707: Cod. Dipl. No. 59. Footnote 708: Ibid. No. 570. Footnote 709: Ibid. No. 353. Footnote 710: