The Curiosities of Ale & Beer. John Bickerdyke
the drinks used in England and Wales during five centuries before the Norman Conquest, remarks on the rarity of the use of ale in Wales at that time. “Mead,” he says, “was still one of their favourite liquors, and bore a high price; for a cask of mead, by the laws of Wales, was valued at 120 pence, equal in quantity of silver to thirty shillings of our present money, and in efficacy to fifteen pounds. The dimensions of a cask of mead must be nine palms in height, and so capacious as to serve the King and one of his counsellors for a bathing tub.” By another law its diameter is fixed at eighteen palms. The Welsh had also two kinds of ale, called common ale and spiced ale, and their value was thus ascertained by law—“If a farmer hath no mead (to pay part of his rent) he shall pay two casks of spiced ale, or four casks of common ale for one cask of mead.” By the same law, a cask of spiced ale, nine palms in height and eighteen palms in diameter, was valued at a sum equal in efficacy to seven pounds ten shillings of our present money; and a cask of common ale, of the same dimensions, at a sum equal to three pounds fifteen shillings. This is a sufficient proof that even common ale at this period was an article of luxury among the Welsh which could only be obtained by the great and opulent. Wine seems to have been quite unknown even to the Kings of Wales at this period, as it is not so much as once mentioned in their laws; though Giraldus Cambrensis, who flourished about a century after the Conquest, acquaints us that there was a vineyard in his time, at Maenarper, near Pembroke, in South Wales.
Before leaving the subject of the British use of ale, it will perhaps amuse some of our readers to find that the very name of Britain has been derived by some from the word βρῡτον, the Greek for beer. The following extract from Hearne’s Discourses is a good instance of that reckless ingenuity in guessing derivations, for which our older school of philologists was ever so justly famed:—“There is one thing,” he says, “which upon this occasion the antiquaries should have observed, and that is our Mault Liquor, called βρῡτον in Athenæus. Which being so, it is humbly offered to the consideration of more judicious persons whether our Britannia might not be denominated from βρῡτον, the whole nation being famous for such sort of drink. ’Tis true, Athenæus does not mention the Britains among those that drunk mault drink; and the reason is, because he had not met with any writer that had {32} celebrated them upon that account, whereas the others that he mentions to drink it were put down in his Authors. Nor will it seem a wonder, that even those people he speaks of were not called Britaines from the said liquor, since it was not their constant and common drink, but was only used by them upon occasion, whereas it was always made use of in Britain, and it was looked upon as peculiar to this Island, and other liquors were esteemed as foreign, and not so agreeable to the nature of the country. And I have some reason to think that those few other people that drunk it abroad did it only in imitation of the Britains, though we have no records remaining upon which to ground this opinion.”
It is rather unfortunate that, in the cause of science, our author did not inform us what that “some reason to think” of his in fact was. However, let us honour his patriotism if we may not his learning.
It would appear that ale and beer were different words signifying the same thing, ale being the Saxon ealu and Danish öl, probably connected with our word oil, and beer being the Saxon beor. Horne Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, says that “ale” is derived from a Saxon verb ælan, which signifies to inflame.
The word “beer” has been the occasion of some ingenuity and not a little diversity of opinion among the philologists. Goldast derived it a pyris, because (he asserts) beer was first made from pears; Vossius from the Latin bibere, to drink, thus: Bibere, Biber and (extrito b) Bier; Somner from the Hebrew Bar, corn. Probably the true derivation is that which connects the word with the root of the verb, to brew. However this may be, the connection of the word barley with the word beere—denoting a coarse kind of barley—is unmistakeable. Beer was originally used to denote the beverage and also the plant from which it was brewed. Beere or bigge is still to be found growing in some parts of Scotland and Ireland, but in England it has given place to the more refined barley (i.e., beer-lec or beer plant).
The attempt to connect the word “yule” with “ale” is probably fanciful, and may have originated from the use of the word “ale” as denoting not only the liquor, but also any festival at which it formed the principal beverage (e.g. the Whitsun Ale). Yule or Jule is probably derived, along with the festival it represents, from the Celts. It was a feast in honour of the sun, the Celtic name for which was heol or houl and was designed to celebrate the time when the Sun-god, after sinking to his lowest point in the heavens in mid-winter, begins again to ascend the sky, ushering in a period of warmth and plenty. When the Saxons {33} were converted to Christianity, their teachers, instead of entirely doing away with the older forms of religion, allowed them to remain, adapting them to the new faith. This was very usual in early days of Christianity, and thus we find the heathen “Yule” merged in the great Christian festival of Christmas.
The very ancient Anglo-Saxon poem entitled Beowulf, a poem which may be said to be the earliest considerable fragment of our language now extant, shows that ale was the chief drink amongst our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the far-off days, before they had seized upon this land of England. It contains a mythological account of the rescue by the hero Beowulf of his friends from the Grendel, a monster who was constantly slaughtering and carrying some of them away. The feast is thus described: “Then was for the sons of the Geats, altogether, a bench cleared in the beer-hall; there the bold in spirit went to sit; the thane observed his office, he that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup; he poured the bright sweet liquor.” Further on, the Danish queen comes in to greet the victors. “There was laughter of heroes, the noise was modulated, words were winsome; Wealtheow, Hrothgar’s queen, went forth; mindful of their races, she, hung round with gold, greeted the men in the hall; and the freeborn lady gave the cup first to the prince of the East Danes; she bade him be blithe at the service of beer, dear to his people. He, the king, proud of victory, joyfully received the feast and hall-cup …”
That it was customary among our ancestors for the lady of the house herself to fill the guests’ cups after dinner, may be gathered from the poem called the Geste of Kyng Horn, which in its present form is of thirteenth century date, but is probably founded upon a much earlier work. The poem thus describes Rymenhild, the queen and wife of King Horn, performing this duty:—
Rymenhild ros of benche Wyn for to schenche;9 After mete in sale,10 Bothe wyn and ale. On horn he bar in honde. So laye was in londe,11 {34} Knightes and squier Alle dronken of the ber.
9 Schenche = to pour out.
10 Sale = hall.
A horn she bare in her hand, So was the custom in the land.
These lines also show that ale and beer were used at that time as interchangeable words.
Our Saxon ancestors seem to have made use of several kinds of beverage; they had wine and mead, cider, which they called æppelwin, and piment, which was a compound of wine, honey, and spices. Ale and beer, however, seem, to use the quaint words of old Harrison, to have “borne the brunt in drincking,” and to have formed the national beverage of the English people from the earliest times to the present day. Ale, honest English ale, was the general drink, and wine was a luxury of the rich, as may be gathered from the old Anglo-Saxon dialogue, entitled Alfric’s Colloquy, in which a lad, on being asked what his drink is, replies, “Ale, if I have it, water, if I have it not.” To the question why he does not drink wine his answer is, “I am not so rich that I can buy me wine; and wine is