Layout and Location - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 136

is in fact more to be said. Many linear earthworks in England are
known as Grim's Ditch or Grim's Dyke; the Neolithic flint mines
in Norfolk, dating from 2500 b.c. or earlier, are known as Grimes
Graves - with or without a mobile apostrophe. And there are many
place-names such as Grimly, Grimley, Grimesthorpe. Two possible
derivations are given by Brian Branston in The Lost Gods of England
[ 16 ] . Apparently Grim, meaning 'having the face hidden by a hood,'
was a nickname of the sky-god Odin and came from Old Norse
'Grimr.' But there was also the Old English grima, meaning a ghost,
sprite or giant, and this is the derivation preferred by Ralph Whit-
lock in In Search of Lost Gods, a Guide to British Folklore [ 17 ] . In old
Scots, we have the adjective 'grumly,' meaning ugly, with a definite
connotation of evil, as in 'The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry' [ 18 ] :
Then ane arose at her bed-foot, And a grumly guest I'm sure
was he…
The Glasgow Cathedral History held in the Glasgow Room of
the Mitchell unfortunately doesn't mention the Grummel Knowe.
But it does stress that like many early churches the location was
chosen as a deliberate challenge to the old religion. The Cathe-
dral was built by the Molendinar Burn. Rituals allegedly were per-
formed there and at a partly artificial amphitheater nearby. The
statue of John Knox in the adjacent Necropolis, the City of the
Dead, is claimed to be on a spot formerly used for Sun-worship.
Apparently, however, the claim dates from the eighteenth century
and has no historical evidence to back it up [ 1, 19A ] .
Mann doesn't speculate on the origins of another very
interesting feature, Dobie's Loan, which ran in the first part
of its course almost due west from the Cathedral site, then
northwest past Broomhill. An enactment of the Magistrates
and Council in 1655 declared that “the gerse of the Simerhill
and lone that passes to Woodsyd, not to be selt heirafter, bot
to lye for the use of the toune kye allanerlie, and non others
to cleame right thairto.” An article published in 1906, quoting
“a News contributor,” gives the route of the old drover's road
as being along St. James's Road, passing the southern slope
of the Summerhill as Dobbie's Loan; “the next turn taken by
this historic loan is North Woodside Road, which winds up its
course in University Avenue [ 19B ] .”