36 HISTORY of ■ the SOCIETr. 



time ftacionary in its meaning, in the fame manner with our 

 Jkiill ovjholl. For there is not the flighteft evidence that, in the 

 ageof Gawin Douglas, it was ufed in that figurative fenfe 

 -which it bore a century afterwards. 



But it is aftonifliing, that this learned writer, after he has 

 quoted Warnefrid, fhould lay any ftrefs on this clrcum- 

 flance, " He does not find that the word Jkaal is ufed by ancient 

 writers." And can he deny this charader to Warnefrid, who 

 flouriflied about the year 774 ? Does not he fay that this kind 

 of cup, made of a human flvuU, is by the Goths called fchale f 

 Can any Scandinavian writer be produced, who ufes minne and 

 full, to the exclufion oijkna!, in an earlier age ? There is no evi- 

 dence that either of thefe terms was written for fome ages after. 

 Warnefrid was not only a writer of great reputation, but 

 himfelf a Golh j and his pofitive teftimony is furely far prefe- 

 rable to the negative evidence deduced from poflerior writers. 

 Although it could be proved, as it cannot, that the term was 

 not vifed, in that early period, in the particular fenfe referred 

 to, it would by no means follow, that it was unknown in its 

 fimple fignification, as denoting a drinking-veffel. As the Lon- 

 gobardi were a Gothic nation, it is extremely improbable, that a 

 term which had fo Angular an origin would be unknown to 

 other nations belonging to the fame race ; although, without 

 any reafon that we can fee, it might be more ufed by one nation 

 than by another. 



Not only is the meaning of this term, as it occurs in other 

 Northern languages, preferved in ours ; but the figurative fenfe 

 is alfo the fame. Thus Loccenius tells us, " Illud nomen in 

 his feptentrionalibus locis adhuc ita remanet, ut dricka fkala, 

 i. e. bibere pateram, metonymice dicatur, quando bibitur alicu- 

 jus honori et memoriae, quod ex hoc vafculo quondam frequen- 

 tius fieri fuetum, notio vocis indicat." Antiq. Sueo-Goth, p. 96. 

 " In compotations," fays Ihre, " the name oijkaalis given to 



the 



