Mead 



211 



The mother of Grendel appeared to avenge her son 

 and was followed to the fen and slain ; thereupon, their work 

 finished, " The bright warriors went to the ship, laden with 

 weapons, steeds, and gold ; the mast rose over Hrothgar's 

 boards. Beowulf gave to the boat-guard a sword bound 

 with gold, and on the mead-bench he was afterwards the 

 worthier for that heirloom." 



From a fragment of heroic Anglo-Saxon poetry we get 

 this : — 



'' Never have I heard of sixty conquering heroes who 

 better bore them at a conflict of men, nor ever requite 

 song or bright mead better than his young warriors requited 

 Hnaif." 



In Scandinavia mead was a national drink, and none 

 who know the delights of Valhalla itself can doubt that 

 mead flowed in those high halls where all were heroes I 



Honey dropped from the leaves of the sacred ash Ygdrasil, 

 as in ancient Greece it dropped from the oak of Zeus;"but 

 the mead of Valhalla, as we learn from the "Younger 

 Edda," was derived from another source. 



Odin received the Einheriar, or heroes slain in battle, in 

 Valhalla. ''Then asked Gangleri //^i? Wayfarer, 'What have 

 the Einheriar to drink, which can supply them together 

 with their meat (the flesh of the ever-renewed boar Sseh- 

 riraner), or is water their drink there?' Then answered 

 Har (the Lofty One), ' Wonderfully spierest thou now, 

 that Allfather should bid to him King or Jarls or other 

 chief men, and should give them water to drink ! And, 

 indeed, many men, I trow, come up to Valhall, who, 

 we should think, had dearly bought their water-drinking, if 

 no better cheer could be expected there, — even such as 

 have suffered wounds and pains unto the death. Nay ! 

 something very different have I to tell thee there-about. 

 A goat there is, hight Hejdrun, which standeth up in Val- 



