I>' THK .MIDDLE AGES. i>Gl

AVe may now glance at tlic drinking- vessels of ancient days. The warriors of the north drank from horns, as did the Homeric heroes ages before them, and as the people of most countries have done where horn -bearing animals Avere known. In the ninth century the Saxon king of Mercia gave tlie monks of Croyland his " table-horn, that the elders of the monastery might drink out of it on feast days, and sometimes remember in their prayers the soul of A'iglaf the donor." The same Wiglaf gave to the refectory of Croyland his gilt cup, embossed on the exterior with " barbarous victors fighting dragons," which he Avas wont to call his " crucible," because a cross was impressed on the bottom, and on the four angles of it'. This was doubtless a specimen of that skill in working j)recious metals for which the Anglo-Saxons were famous, and for the exercise of Avliicli Eadred in 949 rewarded his goldsmith yElfsige with a grant of land^ Horns continued to be ap- pendages of the table until after the Conquest, although other drinking -vessels were in use also. AVe see them represented on the Bayeux Tapestry, and find from wills and other notices that they lingered on the board, or in the hall, for centuries after the date of that historic needlework. The mouth of the horn was not imfrequently fitted with a cover, like the old- fashioned Scotch mull. In the collection of antiquities in the British Museum is preserved a very large drinking-horn of the sixteenth century, so great indeed that it was evidently in- tended to try a man's capacity for wine. It is formed of the small tusk of an elephant, carved with rude figures of ele- phants, unicorns, lions and crocodiles, and mounted Avitli sil- ver : a small tube ending in a silver cup issues from the jaws of a pike whose head and shoulders inclose the mouth of the vessel. The follomng legend is engraved upon it : " Brinfec viou tl)is autJ tl)inli no scoinc ^11 tljouo,!) t!)c CTup Oc mucf) like a !)ovnc." 1599. Fine s. The remains of an iron chain are attached to this horn, which was probably suspended in the hall of some convivial squire of the old time, whose guests were at times summoned to drain it, or to pay a shilling fine. After the horn the commonest drinking-vessel of early times •> Codex Diplom. JEvi Saxonici, vol. i. of great antiquity. p. 30<5. Mr. Kemble suspects the autlien- ' Ibid, ticity of this charter ; it is at any rate i Ihid., vol. ii. p. 'iP.O.