Mead 215 



Although the people drank sack instead of mead in 

 Shakespeare's time, the bard of Avon occasionally refers 

 to the older and no longer universal drink. In " Merry 

 Wives of Windsor," Sir Hugh Evans anathematizing Falstaff 

 declares him to be given to " sack and wine, and metheg- 

 lins," and in '' Love's Labour 's Lost " Biron, jesting with the 

 princess, uses the words " metheglin, wort, and malmsey," 

 as illustrations of things that are sweet. 



Yet mead was a drink for royalty, concerning which 

 Butler tells us : — 



" He who liketh to know the many and sundry makings 

 of this wholesome drink must learn it of the ancient 

 Britains : who therein do pass all other people. One 

 excellent receipt I will here recite : and it is of that which 

 our renowned Queen Elisabeth, of happy memory, did so 

 well like, that she would every year have a vessel of it. 



" The Queen's Metheglin. First, gather a bushel of sweet- 

 briar leaves, and a bushel of thyme, half a bushel of rose- 

 mary, and a peck of bay-leaves. Seethe all these (being 

 well washed) in a furnace ^ of fair water ; let them boil the 

 space of half an hour, or better : and then pour out all the 

 water and herbs into a vat, and let it stand until it be but 

 milk warm : then strain the water from the herbs, and take 

 to every six gallons of water one gallon of the finest honey, 

 and put it into the boorne, and labor it together half an 

 hour : then let it stand two days, stirring it well twice or 

 thrice each day. Then take the liquor and boil it anew : 

 and when it doth seethe, skim it as long as there remaineth 

 any dross. When it is clear, put it into the vat as before, 

 and there let it be cooled. You must then have in readi- 

 ness a kiv(e) of new ale or beer, which as soon as you have 

 emptied, suddenly whelm it upside down, and set it up 

 again, and presently put in the metheglin, and let it stand 



1 According to Bevan not less than 120 gallons. 



