Cups and Their Customs

The Second Edition of this book contains much additional matter, all of which has been derived from notes collected by one of the original authors of the work, whose untimely death is mourned, and whose genial hospitality is remembered, by very many friends. The compiler believes that the additions made will greatly increase the usefulness of the book to all compounders of Cups.

CUPS AND THEIR CUSTOMS.

.... "Then shall our names, Familiar in their mouths as household words, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd."

As in all countries and in all ages drinking has existed as a necessary institution, so we find it has been invariably accompanied by its peculiar forms and ceremonies. But in endeavouring to trace these, we are at once beset with the difficulty of fixing a starting-point. If we were inclined to treat the subject in a rollicking fashion, we could find a high antiquity ready-made to our hands in the apocryphal doings of mythology, and might quote the nectar of the gods as the first of all potations; for we are told that

"When Mars, the God of War, of Venus first did think, He laid aside his helm and shield, and mix'd a drop of drink."

But it is our intention, at the risk of being considered pedantic, to discourse on customs more tangible and real. If we are believers in the existence of pre-Adamite man, the records he has left us, in the shape of flint and stone implements, are far too difficult of solution to be rendered available for drinking-purposes, or to assist us in forming any idea of his inner life: we must therefore commence our history at the time

...... "when God made choice to rear His mighty champion, strong above compare, Whose drink was only from the limpid brook."

Nor need we pause to dilate on the quality of this primæval draught; for "Adam's ale" has always been an accepted world-wide beverage, even before drinking-fountains were invented, and will continue till the end of time to form the foundation of every other drinkable compound. Neither was it necessary for the historian to inform us of the vessel from which our grand progenitor quaffed his limpid potion, since our common sense would tell us that the hollowed palm of his hand would serve as the readiest and most probable means. To trace the origin of drinking-vessels, and apply it to our modern word "cup," we must introduce a singular historical fact, which, though leading us to it by rather a circuitous route, it would not be proper to omit. We must go back to a high antiquity if we would seek the derivation of the word, inasmuch as its Celtic root is nearly in a mythologic age, so far as the written history of the Celts is concerned--though the barbarous custom from which the signification of our cups or goblets is taken (that of drinking mead from the skull of a slain enemy) is proved by chronicles to have been in use up to the eleventh century. From this, a cup or goblet for containing liquor was called the Skull or Skoll, a root-word nearly retained in the Icelandic Skal, Skaal, and Skyllde, the German Schale, the Danish Skaal, and, coming to our own shores, in the Cornish Skala. So ale-goblets in Celtic were termed Kalt-skaal; and, though applied in other ways, the word lingers in the Highland Scotch as Skiel (a tub), and in the Orkneys the same word does duty for a flagon. From this root, though more immediately derived from Scutella, a concave vessel, through the Italian Scodella and the French Ecuelle (a porringer), we have the homestead word Skillet still used in England. There is no lack, in old chronicles, of examples illustrative of that most barbarous practice of converting the skull of an enemy into a drinking-cup. Warnefrid, in his work 'De Gestis Longobard.,' says, "Albin slew Cuminum, and having carried away his head, converted it into a drinking-vessel, which kind of cup with us is called Schala." The same thing is said of the Boii by Livy, of the Scythians by Herodotus, of the Scordisci by Rufus Festus, of the Gauls by Diodorus Siculus, and of the Celts by Silius Italicus. Hence it is that Ragnar Lodbrog, in his death-song, consoles himself with the reflection, "I shall soon drink beer from hollow cups made of skulls."

In more modern times, the middle ages for example, we find historic illustration of a new use of the word, where Skoll was applied in another though allied sense. Thus it is said of one of the leaders in the Gowryan conspiracy "that he did drink his skoll to my Lord Duke," meaning that the health of that nobleman was pledged; and again, at a festive table, we read that the scoll passed about; and, as a still better illustration, Calderwood says that drinking the king's skole meant the drinking of his cup in honour of him, which, he adds, should always be drank standing. In more modern times, however, drinking-cups have been formed of various materials, all of which have, at least in regard to idea, a preferable and more humane foundation than the one from which we derive the term. Thus, for many centuries past, gold and silver vessels of every form and pattern have been introduced, either with or without lids, and with or without handles.

HANAP is the name of a small drinking-cup of the 15th and 16th centuries, made usually of silver, gilt, standing upon feet. They were made at Augsburgh and Nuremberg.

In an old French translation of Genesis, we find at v. 5, c. xliv.:--"Le Hanap que vous avez amblèe est le Hanap mon Seignor, et quel il solort deleter, male chose avez fait," relating to the silver cup Joseph ordered to be put in his brother's sack. In some Scotch songs a drinking-cup is called cogne or cog: this word is also spelt in different parts of Scotland cogie, and coig. This word may be compared with coculum (medical Latin for a hollow wooden vessel), also with the old German kouch, and the Welsh cawg, a basin.

The Flemish drinking-cups of the 16th and 17th centuries were called vidricomes, i.e. "come-agains."

The bell-shaped drinking-glasses of the sixteenth century are specially worthy of observation; and there are three very good specimens in the Bernal Collection at the South-Kensington Museum, one of which is said to be German, and the others Venetian. The mounting of the German glass consists of a hollow sphere in silver, which encloses a dice and is surmounted by a small statuette of Fortune. To the mounting of another of these glasses is attached a little bell. These glasses will stand in the reversed position only, and were of course intended to be emptied at one draught, the dice being shaken or the bell tinkled as a finale to the proceeding. There is also a curious cup in the possession of the Vintners' Company, representing a milk-maid carrying a pail on her head. This pail is set on a swivel, and is so contrived that the uninitiated, when attempting to drink, invariably receive its contents on their neck or chest.