Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/183

 9* s.x. A, so, 1W2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

175

In the same work there is an excellent article on ale and beer, of which I give a summary. The former was the ancient drink of the country. Turner, in his ' History of the Anglo-Saxons,' quotes a grant of Offa, in which clear ale is mentioned and distin- guished from mild ale and Welsh ale. In 'The Laws of Hywel Dda' two liquors are named, bragaivd and cwrw, the latter being of only half the value of the former. Bragawd, or bragget, was a very different liquor from ale, being made of the wort of ale and mead fermented together, while ctvnv was good, clear, substantial ale, but perhaps it was not fined. That art may nave been introduced by the Saxons, and this would explain the difference indicated in Offa's grant. Ale, therefore, before the hop was used in brewing in Henry VIII.'s time, would seem to have been made with malt alone, and was consequently a different liquor from beer, the name and making of which we owe to Germany. Though our ale was celebrated by Skelton and Bishop Still, it was by no means relished by Erasmus, as we learn from Fuller's ' History of Cambridge," where he says :

" Erasmus, when he resided at Queens' College in that university, often complained of the College ale as raw, small, and windy : Ceryisia hujus loci mihi nullo niodo placet : whereby it appears, 1st. Ale in that age was the constant beverage of all colleges, before the innovation of beer (the child of hops) was brought into England. 2nd. Queens' College cerrinia was not m cerem, but ceres ritiata. In my time, when I was a member of that House, scholars continued Erasmus his complaint ; while the Brewers, having, it seemed, prescription on their side for long time, little amended it."

A better state of things would seem to have prevailed at the sister university, for Kpbert Burton mention'* beer, and, though no drinker of it, he speaks in praise of it as follows :

" But let them say as they list, to such as are accustomed unto it, ' 'tis a most wholesome (so Polydor Virgil calleth it) and a pleasant drink,' it is more subtile and better, for the hop that rarefies it hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess, Fuchsius approves, Lib. 2. sec. 2. instit. cap. 11. and many others."

JOHN T. CURRY.

[It is not to the point, but seekers after amusement should read, if they have not read, Barham's mock erudition in 'Ingoldsby' on the subject of the dis- tich quoted above. The comment is on " When the hurly burly 's done."]

ALMOND TREE AS AN EMBLEM OF OLD AGE (9 th S. x. 68). DR. SYKES suggests that the tree which in Eccles. xii. 5 is- % used when blossoming as a simile for old age is not, as rendered in our versions, the almond tree, but some other, perhaps one called the numah-

tree, referred to by Kipling in a different connexion.

The Hebrew word in Ecclesiastes is shaked Oi*>Kp, and there seems no doubt that it signi- fies 'the almond or almond-tree. It is used also in Gen. xliii. 11, Num. xvii. 8, and Jer. i. 11 ; and to describe the shape of the bowls in Exodus (xxv. 33, 34, and xxxvii. 19, 20). The meaning, however, of the word trans- lated " flourish " or "blossom," has been con- tested. Gesenius prefers to render it " spurn " or "reject," and in this he is followed by Benisch, the idea being that old people rejected the hard almond from want of teeth. But, as is pointed out by Dr. Post in Hastings's ' Dictionary of the Bible,' the imagery of failing teeth is alluded to in verse 3, and is not likely to be repeated here. There is no good reason for objecting to the usual expla- nationthe comparison of the snowy locks of an old man to an almond-tree in blossom, the general appearance of which at a distance is that of a top of snowy white. The late Thomas Tyler, in hjs 'Introduction to Eccle- siastes ' (second edifton, 1899, p. 164), remarks that "the almond-tree blossometh this seems by far the most probable rendering."

The above usual word for almond in Hebrew is from a root signifying to watch or hasten, and doubtless comes from its early flowering, a sort of harbinger of spring ; but there is another word for itluz (the same as in Arabic), which is found in Gen. xxx. 37, where the A.V. erroneously renders " hazel," and this was the former name of the town of Bethel, as is mentioned in Judges i. 23, and transferred to one afterwards built in the land of the Hittites (i. 26). W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

Reuss, in his German translation of the Old Testament, renders the word "almond-tree." He thinks that the sentence which refers to this tree is quite unintelligible, and that the word may have had a meaning which has now become unknown. Sos.

As the Revisers retained " almond-tree " as the rendering of shaked, perhaps we may have confidence in the correctness of the translation. Dr. W. M. Thompson, who had thirty years' experience of Syria and Palestine, does not question the propriety of the figure. He says ('The Land and the Book,' p. 319) :

"In that affecting picture of the rapid and in- evitable approach or old age drawn by the royal preacher, it is said that ' the almond-tree shall flourish ' or blossom. The point of the figure is doubtless the fact that the white blossoms com- pletely cover the whole tree, without any mixture of green leaves, for these do not appear until some time after. It is the expressive type of old age,