Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/287

Rh We may now glance at the 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 were known. In the ninth century the Saxon king of Mercia gave the 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 Wiglaf 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 was 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 precious metals for which the Anglo-Saxons were famous, and for the exercise of which Eadred in 949 rewarded his goldsmith Ælfsige with a grant of land. Horns continued to be appendages of the table until after the Conquest, although other drinking-vessels were in use also. We 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 unfrequently 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 intended to try a man's capacity for wine. It is formed of the small tusk of an elephant, carved with rude figures of elephants, unicorns, lions and crocodiles, and mounted with silver: 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 following legend is engraved upon it:—

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