The egg of a griffin, the fabulous creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. It was a word for an oval-shaped cup, possibly made from a large egg, such as that of an ostrich.
The word ‘grith’, often metathesised to ‘girth’, meant peace or guaranteed security, and a sanctuary seeker in Durham would rap at the knocker on the door of the Cathedral asking gyrth for God’s sake (SS64/72). In Yorkshire, both Beverley and Ripon had similar rights.
We are accustomed to think of the grocer as a tradesman who dealt in spices, sugar, dried fruits and other items of domestic consumption but the term was not prominent in the fourteenth century, unlike 'mercer' and 'spicer', and in that period it more probably referred to an 'engrosser', that is a wholesaler:
A type of nail, usually said to be large, and used in fixing gutters, although references in the churchwardens’ account of St Michael, Spurriergate, link such nails with ‘tingles’, in securing the bell wheels and carved angels’ wings.
This was the original name for what we now call ‘Bonfire night or ‘Plot night’, the celebration on 5 November of the failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.