1855.] 



SOME ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CANADIAN AND ENGLISH MAPLE. 



381 



■when the season returns, and wherever a drop fell from them 

 the wild rasp grew up on the spot. But hastening on, he 

 drew his arrow from the tree, and immediately there flowed 

 out the sweet maple juice, and the Indian drank of it and was 

 refreshed, and he gave of it to his brother, the beaver, and 

 they knew that it was the Great Spirit who made the mother 

 of the Chippawas. 



Such is a legend of the Indian tribe to which this land once 

 pertained, showing, as might have been expected, that the 

 substantial products of the Acer Saccharinum, rather than any 

 graceful beauties in other varieties, constitute their source of 

 estimation of the maple tree. 



Without supposing that there is the slightest grounds for 

 tracing a common origin, it will be seen that the idea of men 

 being originally made from trees, was as favourite a legend 

 among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors as with the Indians of Jjake 

 Superior; and familiar as all of us now are with the new 

 emblematic significance attached to the beautiful Canadian 

 Maple Leaf, figured on the silver trowel with which his Ex- 

 cellency laid the foundation stone of our new hall this day, 

 it may not be uninteresting to recall some of the associations 

 which oentui'ies have gathered around the common maple of 

 England, as well as other species of the tree to which the 

 Romans gave the generic name of Acer. 



This name would appear to have been applied in various 

 forms in several of the Indo-European languages, to trees not 

 always of the same genus, nor even bearing a very close re- 

 semblance to each other. It is the Ascr and the Ask, of the 

 old Norse eddas, as in the Edda Saemundi, where the Aacr 

 Ygdrasils, or tree of Odin is referred to : the mighty tree 

 under which the Gods of the Norsemen were believed to sit in 

 judgment, while its branches extended throughout the world, 

 and overshadowed heaven itself. It is also the sesc of the 

 Anglo-Saxons, which, in the language of our forefathers, not 

 only signified the ash tree, but also a man, because the 

 northern nations supposed the first man to have been made of 

 that tree. It is the masarn of the ancient Britons, still ap- 

 plied by the Welsh to the sycamore tree ; and the German 

 maser, the Dutch maeser, the old Swedish masur, the Ice- 

 landic mausur and niosor, and the Scottish and old English 

 mazer, as well as the modern English maple, all applied to the 

 varieties of the maple tree. From the various forms of the 

 name it appears to be obvious that the old English one is 

 derived from a Scandanavian and not an Anglo-Saxon source ; 

 and a similar origin has been assigned to the well-known 

 superstitious virtues ascribed to the Scottish Ptowan, or Moun- 

 tain Ash, as at once a potent instrument of witchcraft, and an 

 infallible charm against its spells. To a like source it would 

 also seem no less probable that we may trace that ancient appli- 

 cation of the maple, to which I have now spociallj' to refer, 

 for the manufacture of the favourite drinking-cup and wassail 

 bowl. The close texture of the maple wood, with the beauty 

 of its grain, and its susceptibility of a high polish, doubtless 

 contributed to its continued use for the manufacture of the 

 pledge-cup and bowl. Hence its Scandinavian name of maser 

 came to be applied to the cup made from the wood of the 

 tree ; and when at a later period, other woods, and even the 

 costliest metals were substituted, the old designation of the 

 niazcr-uup was .still retained. The late Mr. T. H. Turner, 

 remarks, in a series of papers in the Arrhaolofiirnl Journal, 

 on the "usages of domestic life in the middle ages:" 

 "our ancestors seem to have been greatly attached to their 

 mazers, and to have incurred much cost in enriching them. 

 Quaint legends, in English or Latin, monitory of peace and 



good-fellowship, were oflen embossed on the metal rim and on 

 the cover; or the popular, but mystic Saint Christopher, en- 

 graved on the bottom of the interior, rose in all his giant pro- 

 portions, before the eyes of the wassailer, giving comfortable 

 assurance that on that festive day, at least, no mortal harm 

 could befall them." 



The value attached to the mazer-cup in olden times, no 

 doubt, arose in part from the veneration with which it came to 

 be regarded as a family heirloom, and as such, engraven with 

 favourite devices and pious legends, and sometimes decorated 

 with chasing and rich carvings. That it was held in special 

 esteem, independent of its mere intrinsic value, is shown by 

 its frequent specification in old inventories and valuations. 

 In an assessment of the Borough of Colchester, for example, 

 in the beginning of the 14th century, (29th of Edward I.) 

 mazers are repeatedly mentioned among the household effects 

 of the citizens, and always at valuations which show them to 

 have been wooden bowls. One ciphus de mazero is valued at 

 18cl., and another cijihus de mazero parvus at 6f/. The 

 highest valuation of a citizen's mazer-cup is 2s., and this may, 

 perhaps be assumed to have had the addition of a silver rim, 

 decorated with legend or moral rhyme. A deeper historic 

 interest attaches to the more costly mazers mentioned in an 

 inventory of the treasure and jewels of James III. of Scotland, 

 as the "Four Masakis called King Robert the Brocis." 

 But very different, yet not perhaps less curiously illustrative, 

 is the following inventory introduced in the old black-letter 

 ballad printed by Wynken de Worde, entitled, "A li/teU geste 

 of Rohyn Ilode." The goods are those of the Sherift" of Not- 

 tingham, and the inventory is by " Lytell John" : — 



"They dyde them to the treasure-house 



As fast as they might gone, 

 The locks that were of good stele 



They brake them every one ; 

 They took away the sylver vessels 



And all that they might get, 

 Peoes, mazers, and spones, 



Wolde they none forgete." 



The quaint simplicity both of the decorations and the in- 

 scriptions of many of those old wassail bowls furnishes inter- 

 esting illustrations of the manners and ideas of the age to 

 which they belong. Our forefathers had a pious, and, withal, 

 a very convenient fashion, of uniting religion with their daily 

 sports, and even as it might seem, seeking to sanctify their 

 excesses. Chaucer and Dunbar wind up their freest versions 

 of the Decameron with a pious couplet ; and the latter poet 

 thus closes his "Droichis (or dwarf's) part of the play" — 



" God bless thanie, and the haly rude. 



Gives me drink, sa it be gude ; 

 And wha trowis best that I do hide, 



Skynk first to me tlie can." 



A very beautiful mazer of the time of llicharj II., iiuw in 

 the po.ssession of Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., is made of highly 

 polished maple wood, hooped with a richly ornamented rim of 

 silver gilt, on which is engraven the couplet : — 

 "In the name of the Trinitie, 

 rill the kup and drinko to me." 



Inscriptions of this nature were doubtless regarded as nearly 

 equivalent to the more modern grace, and they are accordingly 

 of frequent occurrence, as on the beautiful Hcbridean Drinking 

 Cup, celebrated by Sir Walter Scott, iu the " Lord of the Isles," 

 as that — 



"Krst own'd by Royal Somcrlcd." 



It is also of a smooth polished wood, probably ninple, and 



