Spot the frippet: grith.

Photo by Fred Csasznik

Grith means safety.

It's a legal term, and was once used to describe a place of security, peace, or protection. In England, for instance, churches were sometimes places where people could find refuge from the Law.

A place of grith might be an actual place, as in a church or town or castle or highway, or it might describe a period of time during which a person was free of persecution.

We think of former times as brutal and anarchic - and heaven knows they often were - but I wish that grith as an idea hadn't vanished from our lands.

And I hope that you, wherever in the world you may be, have your own place of grith in which to lay your head.

Spot the frippet: grith. This word comes from the old English grith, and is related to the Old Norse grith, which means asylum or home.