ABSTRACT
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 of the poem. But Grendel, who, from the characteristics given above, may at once be numbered among the rough, violent deities of nature, the Jotnar of the North [note: ‘In Beowulf he is continually called Eoten’] 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, Grindles bece, and Grendles mere [refers in note to Kemble 1839-48, charter nos 59, 570, 353, and goes on to paraphrase Grimm’s views on Grendel and Loki, the devil’s mother, etc.].
