The Founding Legend Of Grimsby

In the early 1820's around about the time when the English written version was discovered amid great excitement at Oxford, unbeknown to the academics, a discovery was also fortunately being made independently near North Thoresby in Lincolnshire by a Lincolnshire historian from Caistor by the name of Henry Evans Smith. Smith discovered from conversations with several elderly rustics at the village of Audby, situated eight miles south-west of Grimsby, that they had also inherited an ancient traditional legend concerning a man by the name of Grim. They said that Grim and his man Boundel had been in Lindsey long before the Viking invasions. Grim had been a gigantic man like Boundel, a sea-farer and captain of a ship and he had sailed widely on trading missions. When famine and drought came over the land, Grim and Boundel went over to Denmark and stole two magic ancient bluestones from the king and brought them back to Lindsey landing at Tetney Haven. Grim and Boundel then set up the magic bluestones at croft sites at Audby and North Thoresby and for centuries they both would have remained there too, serving as focal points for feasting, ceremony, ritual, and possibly much more, yet after a number of years, Grim's stone suddenly vanished. Boundel's stone had been used to bring the rain and Grim's stone had been used to make the corn grow. Could the mysterious ancient bluestone of Grimsby actually be Grim's Stone ? There is indeed a real possibility that this isolated orally preserved tradition has genuinely survived somewhat intact due to association with the famine and the ancient stones. It may be that this sea-farer Grim mentioned in the North Thoresby legend, could be the selfsame heroic Grim later found saving the life of Havelok, finally fleeing to England, and founding the town of Grimsby in the process. It may be that after the famine had passed, there came a time when Grim saw fit to return quietly for the magic Danish bluestone for his new settlement of Grimsby further north.
When a classic old British folk-heroic tale has the ability to run the gauntlet of time and survive more than a thousand years with the capacity for being described as myth, legend, romance, fairy-tale, and fable, it is perhaps not surprising that from folklore, one finds the irresistible vital magic missing ingredient which is needed to establish the fact that behind all else, there was indeed a remarkable man named Grim.


* Lindsey was a sixth century kingdom between the Humber Estuary in the north and the Fenlands and River Witham in the south, with marshlands and sea to the east, and the flood plains of the Trent to the west; Lincoln was its capital.

* As Tetford is the legendary site of the great battle fought in Lindsey to gain the princess her kingdom, the seven ancient burial mounds and barrows that exist there, may hold clues and evidence of that battle and tribute to warriors of both camps.

Acknowledgements

'The Founding Legend Of Grimsby' by Kevin Gracie, was a freelance article written in 2001 AD for the 'Aspects of Northern Lincolnshire' publication by Wharncliffe Publishing and Pen and Sword Books Ltd, edited by Jenny Walton.
Publication of the book will be in Summer-Autumn of 2002 AD.

Extracts : 'The Saga of Havelok the Dane' by Rev. C. W. Whistler M.R.C.S. from The Saga-Book Vol. III; Part III; January 1904 - The Viking Club.

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