Another custom is to get a ladybird and put it on the back of the hand and say:- Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, Your horse is on foot, your children are gone; All but one, and that's little John, And he lies under the grindle stone.
"Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District"
Charles Dack
Mrs. grindle, madam, replied the accused, you have heard of beds and you have heard of garden-beds.
"The Passionate Elopement"
Compton Mackenzie
If we follow the River Clyst from the point where the grindle flows into it, through two miles of marshy land, to the estuary of the Exe, we shall there find plenty.
"Beowulf An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn"
R. W. Chambers