Human Rights and democracy in the Wizarding World; Grindelwald

[Sabina Pfister]

No: HPFGUIDX 31643


 > BTW, what does Grindelwald mean?  I know that wald is German for
 > forest, and Grindel sounds suspiciously like the monstrous villain in
 > Beowulf.  Odd name for a wizard, though, either way.
 >
 > Joshua Dyal


Maybe I can help you here: Grindelwald is an alpine resort in 
Switzerland. According to their homepage, "grindel" is old German/Celtic
 (I don't know why they're putting both languages, I'd say they're 
completely different, but I don't know anything about language history) 
for "a piece of wood, which is used for barriers"; Grindelwald would 
then be "a woody place, blocked off from the rest of the world", which 
seems to have been true for Grindelwald for a long time. (My 
translations are not absolutely exact, but it's the best I can manage.) 
The address is  http://www.grindelwald.ch/admin/Daten.htm#Ortsnamens, if 
you understand German.
But probably JKR just found the name on a map...

Hope this helped
Sabina