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 



