HEATH TRIBE 215 



immersed in tliio decoction, becomes of a bright golden yellow. The Heath, 

 too, is very astringent, and is sometimes used in tanning leather. Leather 

 is said to become sooner saturated with heath-tan than with that made of 

 bark; and in 1776 the discovery of its use was laid before the House of 

 Commons in Ireland, and the account was ordered to be printed. 



Old traditions, still extant in Ireland, tell that the Danes made beer of 

 the Heath, but Boethius relates this of the Picts. The historian says, that 

 in the deserts and moors of the realm there grows a herb named Heather, 

 which is very nutritive to beasts, birds, and especially to bees, and which in 

 the month of June produces flowers as sweet as honey, and that of this the 

 Picts made a delicious beer. The manner of making the heather beer 

 perished with the extermination of the Picts, as they never showed it to any 

 except to those of their own blood. Leyden adds, that the traditions of 

 Teviotdale say, that when the Picts were exterminated, a father and son 

 alone remained after the slaughter, and that being brought before Kenneth 

 the Conqueror, life was offered to the father on condition of his revealing the 

 secret of making this liquor ; and the son was put to death before his eyes in 

 order to induce the old man to consent. This very exercise of cruelty, 

 however, determined him more resolutely to keep the secret from the 

 conqueror, and he said, " Your threats might have influenced my son, but 

 they have no effect on me." The king then suffered thePict to live, and the 

 secret remained untold. 



A recent writer, referring to this, says, "It is just possible that the grain 

 of truth contained in this tradition may be, that all the northern nations, as 

 the Swedes still do, used the narcotic gale {Myrica gaU), which grows among 

 the Heather, to give bitterness and strength to their barley beer ; and hence 

 the ignorant believe that the beer was made chiefly of the Heather itself. 

 AVhile we Avrite, a newspaper paragraph has come under our eye, which 

 states that a ' Mr. Harper, of Galway, shows to his visitors a large amount of 

 bottled beer, manufactured by a metropolitan house from wild Heath.' We 

 should put more faith in this paragraph if the author or brewer would be 

 good enough to substitute the word ' flavoured ' for ' manufactured.' A liquid, 

 called heather beer, was commonly made in the Highlands some years since, 

 and as the verse says — 



' Sir Geoffrey the bold of the cup laid hold 

 "With heath-ale mantling high.' " ' 



A Highland friend of the author assures her that in summer-time his 

 father, a Scottish clergyman, commonly brewed a liquid so called, and of 

 which the ingredients were gathered from a neighbouring moor. As this 

 gentleman, however, cannot remember the exact mode of making it, it is not 

 improbable that the bitter and narcotic bog-myrtle may have entered into 

 its composition. He says of this beer, that it was very pleasant in flavour 

 brisk and sparkling, but that unless drunk almost immediately after the 

 brewing it became very sour. 



Our red or purple Heather is indeed a boon to bees, but some persons sav 

 that honey made from it is narcotic — it is certainly of a dark hue. The 

 enormous number of blossoms to the square yard of heath plants furnishes 



