266
NOTES AND QUERIES.
[9 th S. I. APRIL 2, '98.
come by the blandishments and beauty of
Hengist's daughter, proposed, and ultimately
became her husband. " Secera " was strong
drink, and, as recorded by St. Luke, did not,
I venture to think, include wine. It would
appear " secera," mentioned in the ' Historia,'
principally, if not altogether, refers to ale,
beer, &c. That mead was intoxicating seems
clear, and looking at the ingredients from
which this drink (in part handed down and
in use to-day) was in all probability brewed,
one may fairly suppose that it was the
"sweet Welsh ale above named. That
mead was a beverage of considerable value
and importance is clear from the fact that
the "mead" brewer was one of the great
officers of State. From an old dictionary*
I learn that " Mede (Brit, meed) is a drink
made of water and honey, used in Wales."
In a Welsh dictionary,t " Medd=me&t, or
drink, made of honey." Whether the native
modesty of the author prevented his naming
the more intoxicating ingredient is an open
question, as ignorance on the part of a
dictionary maker is out of the controversy,
if there was one. The authority mentioned
is the only one that I find for "mead" being
" meat and drink." " Braggot " was made of
malt, honey, and water; "hydromet" was
made of "water and honey sodden together,"
so says my authority of 1681. The ordinary
dictionary of to-day gives " Mead= honey
and water fermented and flavoured " ; but this
could hardly have been the "mead" of the
Saxon period to which I refer. That "mead"
has fallen from the position it once held is, I
think, clear, and the method of its manufac-
ture is lost. In this part mead is made to a
very limited extent, and by persons who
dispose of it at fairs, markets, and such like
gatherings. So far as my inquiries go it is
made in this district from honey, brown
sugar, peppercorns, Jamaica pepper, ginger,
cloves, wild carrots, brewers' barm, and
water. There is, however, a remnant of its
original self traceable in the fact that some
years ago (I will not say now), when "mead"
was asked for, it was understood to convey
the desire for a glass of something stronger,
by itself or mixed. Whether or not the lynx
eye of the Excise officer has caused the
omission of the important component part of
"mead" I cannot vouch for, but I have my
own thoughts on the matter. "Braggot"
and " hydromet " I have no account of, other
than mentioned ; and bright ale, beer, Welsh
ale, still remain for explanation. That these
- Blunt, London, 1681.
t Thomas Jones, Shrewsbury, 1771.
Welsh beverages were, for some reason, con-
sidered special or superior to what either the
Saxons made or could elsewhere purchase is
perfectly clear from the charters specifying
- Welsh ale," "sweet Welsh ale."
ALFRED CHAS. JONAS. Swansea.
ANGLICIZED WORDS : " BERGEN - OP - ZOOM " : "NIVERNOIS."
"No boy except himself was considered an invin- cible dunce, or wnat is sometimes called a Bergen-op- Zoom, that is, a head impregnable to all teaching and all impressions that could be conveyed through books." De Quincey, ' Collected Writings,' 1890, iii. 93.
" [In 1762] the Duke de Nivernois came here. Of the last gentleman I cannot say I remember much, but that he introduced the Fashion of very Small Hats, which used to be called after him Nivernois Hats." 'A Kentish Country House,' by Lady Jennings, 1894, p. 109.
I cannot find the words in ' The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicized Words and Phrases.'
C. A.
"To THE LAMP-POST." (See ante, p. 206.) This is a mistranslation of " A la lanterne ! " There was no l&mp-post. The lamp was hung over the middle of the street, in the centre of a cord, which passed over pulleys at the sides of the street. The lamp was let down, the person to be hanged was substituted for it, and the ends of the cord pulled.
F. J. CANDY.
Norwood.
BURNING TREES AT FUNERALS. In the Burgery Accounts of Sheffield an entry appears in 1590:
e Item, payd to the Coronerye for the fee of iij persons that were slayne with the fall of ij Trees that were burned downe at my Lordes funerall the xiijth of January, 1590 viij.s." 'Records of the Burgery of Sheffield,' 1897, p. 60.
In a foot-note the editor, Mr. J. B. Leader, says the funeral was that of George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury :
"At this period funerals often took place at night, and the trees may have been burnt to make a display. But the burning of these trees in January rather suggests the funeral pyre, which may have survived, in a degenerate form, into the sixteenth century. In Virgil's account of the burning of the body of Misenus ('^En.' vi. 212) cypress trees are burnt with the pile. In either case this entry is of great interest. The bdl or funeral pile was used by the ancient Norsemen, and horses, jewels, &c., thrown in. Of course the Earl was not burnt on a pyre, but the burning of the trees may have been a survival into later times of the custom."
Does the entry in the Burgery books mean that the trees were ignited when standing? WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK.
Glasgow.
