26 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
English honey-brew, it is equally certain that with 
the coming of the Normans began its slow decline 
in the national estimation. Following in the trail 
of Duke William’s nondescript army came the 
traders, with their outlandish liquors from the 
grape; and wine must soon have taken the place 
of the Saxon mead, first among the foreign nobles, 
and later among the native thanes. From that 
day mead has steadily declined in vogue, and to- 
day mead-making is practically a lost art, surviving 
only among a few old-fashioned folk here and 
there in remote country places. 
But it is still to be obtained; and those of us 
who have had the good fortune to taste good old 
mead, well matured in the wood, are sure to feel 
a regret that no determined effort is being made 
to rehabilitate it in the national favour. Perhaps 
there is no more wholesome drink in the world, 
and certainly none requiring less technical skill 
in the making. All the ancient books on bee- 
keeping give receipts for its manufacture, differing 
only in the variety of foreign ingredients added 
for its improvement, or, as we prefer to believe, to 
its degradation. For the finest mead can be 
brewed from pure honey and water alone, and any 
addition of spices or other matter serves only to 
destroy its unique flavour. Some of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth century bee-masters were re- 
nowned in their day for their mead-brewing ; and 
one of the foremost of them claims for his potion 
