Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/29



OF THE invention of beer divers tales are told; for some say that the Egyptians first concocted this super-excellent and glorious juice; some place that primitive brewery among the Germans, lauding their King Gambrinus, and some stiffly maintain that those Asiatic peoples that fought with Xenophon did used to get drunk on ale, and nothing else. But I believe these to be idle tales, legendary fables, and false conceits, for our old bards in their Triads name cwrw (and that is ale) as one of the three special blessings of the Land of Summer. Hence I believe that the Silurians, while they dwelt in that land, by some happy chance brewed beer, and, as they journeyed westward, imparted the secret of its concoction to the races through whose midst they passed; and finally, having brought their ships to anchor off the coast of Gwent, made a stay at last to all their wandering, and set up their vats beside the waters of the Uske. And this Manor of Pwllcwrw, in which I dwell, I suspect to have been from the very first a moist yet ever thirsty soil; for the word meaneth Beer Pool, or in the Latin tongue, as it is styled in the ancient Court Rolls, Stagnum de Cervisiâ. And unto this day, if you shall ask a man in the manour who is casting barley-seed upon the ground,