PTIEFACE. 



IX 



food, chickens,' giblets, pigs trotters,^ eggs, broth, 

 various preparations of milk, some of the nature of 

 junkets.'*' 



From some of their drawings, their cookery of meat 

 seems to have been more Homeric^ than Roman or 

 modern English, for we see portions of meat brought 

 up on small spits, all hot, to the table. All food that 

 required it was sweetened with honey, before men had 

 betaken themselves to sugar. For fruits, we know 

 they had sweet apples,''' which are not indigenous to 

 England, pears, peaches,*^ medlars, plums, and cherries. 



Saxons, thus well provided with eatables, could 

 satisfy thirst with not a few good and savoury drinks ; 

 with beer, with strong beer, with ale, with strong ale, 

 with clear ale, with foreign ale, and with what they 

 called twybrowen, that is, double brewed ale, a luxury, 

 now rare, and rare too then probably.'' These ales 

 and beers were, of course, to deserve the name, and 

 as wo learn from many passages of the present publi- 

 cation, made of malt, and some of them, not all pro- 

 l>ably, were hopped.^ I have sufficiently, in the Glos- 

 sary,^ established that tlie hop plant and its use were 

 known to the Saxons, and that they called it by a 

 name, after which I have inquired in vain among 

 hop growers and hop pickers in Worcestershire and 

 Kent, the Hymele.'" The hop grows wild in our hedges, 

 male and female, and the Saxons in this state called 

 it the hedge hj^mele ; a good valid presumption that they 

 knew it in its fertility. Three of the Saxon legal deeds 



' As before. 

 - Lb. II. i. 

 ^ Gl. ylecan. 



•• Kai a./x(p' o^eXoKTiv tQrjKav. 

 ' Mylsee asppla, Lb. II. xvi. 

 " Persocas, Lb. p. 176 ; Lacn. 89 ; 

 AiSa|. .31. 



• Lb. T. xlvii. .1. 



^ Hb, Ixviii. 



" See also Preface, Vol. I. p. Iv. 



'" I find Ymele, fem., gen -an, for 

 a roll, scroll, volumen. The Ilymele 

 is in glossaries frequently Voliihilis ; 

 and the two suggest a derivation for 

 either from Ymbe = 'Aficpi, so that 

 Ilvmele means coiler. 



