MEAD. 237 



" 1st, Every sentence of the judge ; 



2nd, Every new song ; and 



3rd, Every cask of Mead." 



Mead-making appears to have been regarded 

 by our forefathers as a high and important avo- 

 cation ; at the courts of the Princes of Wales, 

 the mead-maker was the eleventh person in dig- 

 nity, and took place of the physician. We read 

 in the English History, that Ethelstan a sub- 

 ordinate king of Kent, in the tenth century, on 

 paying a visit to his relation Ethelfleda felt very 

 much delighted that there was no deficiency of 

 mead. According to the custom at royal feasts, 

 it was served up in cut horns and other vessels of 

 various sizes. About the same period, it was 

 customary to allow the monks a sextareum (about 

 a pint) of mead between six of them at dinner, 

 and half the quantity at supper. 



It was probably the liquor called by Ossian, 

 the joy and strength of shells, with which his 

 heroes were so much delighted; the Caledonian 

 drinking-vessels having consisted of large shells, 

 which are still used by their posterity in some 

 parts of the Highlands. Mention is sometimes 

 made also of the Feast of Shells. 



Mead was the ideal nectar of the Scandinavian 

 nations, which they expected to quaffin heaven out 

 of the skulls of their enemies ; and, as may reason- 

 ably be supposed, the liquor which they exalted 



