Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/143

 12 S. V. MAY, 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

137

may be selected. The other starts from any prescribed square, and ends on any prescribed square. Roget's may be de- scribed as " the diamond square " method. A full account of it is to be found in ' Amuse- ments in Chess,' by Charles Tomlinson, 1845. The phrase " any prescribed square," as applied to a terminal, must be limited to those of an opposite colour to that of the starting-point, when the problem is per- formed on an ordinary bicoloured chess- board. This follows from the nature of the Knight's leap itself. JOHN W. BROWN.

[MR. W. FISHER sends two other diagrams by which the Knight's tour may be begun on any square. We have forwarded these to B. B.]

GRIM OR GRIME : ETYMOLOGY OF THE NAME (12 S. v. 95). We have Great and Little Grimsby in Lincolnshire. The name is said to be derived from a common Danish name, Grim or Grimr. The legend of Grim the fisherman, who became lord of the port, is told in the Old English poem of ' Have- lok the Dane.' J. T. F.

Winterton, Lines.

In Harrison's ' Surnames of the United Kingdom.' (1912) we get the origin of the name as :

" Grim, Grime (A.-Scand.). 1. Grim, Fierce (Old English grimm O. Norse grimm-r).

"2. Mask, Helmet, Spectre (O.E. grima O.N. grim-r).

"3. Perhaps Grime has occasionally been con- fused with Grime (Dan. grim), soot. Hence Dark, Dirty."

Lower's ' Patronymica Britannica ' says that Grimm, Grym, is the old Norse Grimr grim, fierce, an ancient personal name, and apparently Scandinavian.

Bardsley's ' Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames ' says that Grim was a common name in England in the thirteenth century, and accounts for the great number of place-names beginning with Grim.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

The name Grim, which signifies fierce, terrible, was one of the attributes of Odin, and Norsemen sometimes attached it to their children, either simply or in some compound appellation. It is hardly neces- sary to remark that it is not infrequent in local names, Grimsby with its legend of its founder being the best-known example. According to the ' Concise Oxford Dic- tionary,' our adjective grim should be considered in connexion with the German grimm and the obsolete grame, angry.

ST. SWITHIN.

Grim or Grime is a not uncommon name of Norse descent. The eponymous hero Gryme, from whom Grimsby takes its name, was a Northerner. It is also a nourv meaning an evil spirit, goblin, or spectre,, and wherever the site is connected with, prehistoric earthworks, it may well be used in this sense, or perhaps merely to show their supernatural origin. In Warwickshire, about a mile north of Coleshill, is Grimstock Hill, " The Goblin's Post." There is a Grimsburjr in Berkshire, Grime's Hill and Grime's Pits in Worcestershire, and so forth. It will also- be remembered that the cross -bearer of St. Thomas of Canterbury was a Grim.

J HARVEY BLOOM.

GILT WAND (12 S. v. 97). This is evi- dently one of the staves borne by an Earl Marshal's Gold Staff officer at some corona- tion or other public function. The arms of the Earl Marshal are at one end, and the arms of the temporary " officer " should be painted at the other end of the staff. A member of my own family has one of these staves that was used by her father at the coronation of Queen Victoria and at the Duke of Wellington's funeral. vj

W. G. D. FLETCHER, F.S.A.V]

Oxon Vicarage, Shrewsbury.

[ST. SWITHIN also thanked for reply.]

ODESSA IN ROMAN TIMES (12 S. v. 98) was apparently outside the boundary of the- Empire. But the kings of the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea) were faithful vassals of Rome until dispossessed by the Goths in the middle of the third century A.D.

A. R. BAYLEY.

THE ' NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY ' r CHANGES IN ACCENTUATION (12 S. v. 32 r 105). Does Milton ever intend the accent to fall on the first syllable of ambitious ? The only line, in which at first sight he appears to do so is ' P. L.,' vi. 160 :

Before thy fellows, ambitious to win ; but by pronouncing ambitious as a word of four syllables we avoid the necessity without, as it seems to me, making the line un-Miltonic. Infinite, I believe, he always intends us to accent on the first syllable. I have not looked up every passage in, which the word occurs, but usually it certainly has the customary accentuation, and ' P. L.,' iv. 74, seems to show that it should have it where the other might be regarded as giving the proper scansion. :

Infinite wrath, and infinite despair. Surely the word has the same accent ii* both cases.