Part 22 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: STONE DRINKING-CUP.]

Drink was usually served to the guests after meals. Among the seven prerogatives for the King of Teamhair (Tara) we find:

”The fruits of Manann, a fine present; And the heath fruit of Brigh Leithe; The venison of Nas; the fish of the Boinn; The cresses of the kindly Brosnach.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALSTAVE CELT.]

Dr. O'Donovan suggests that the ”heath fruit” may have been bilberries or whortleberries, and adds that some of the old Irish suppose that this, and not the heath, was the shrub from which the Danes brewed their beer.[259] It would appear that the Celts were not in the habit of excessive drinking until a comparatively recent period. In the year 1405 we read of the death of a chieftain who died of ”a surfeit in drinking;”

but previous to this entry we may safely a.s.sert that the Irish were comparatively a sober race. The origin of the drink called whisky in modern parlance, is involved in considerable obscurity. Some authorities consider that the word is derived from the first part of the term usquebaugh; others suppose it to be derived from the name of a place, the Basque provinces, where some such compound was concocted in the fourteenth century. In Morewood's _History of Inebriating Liquors_, he gives a list of the ingredients used in the composition of usquebaugh, and none of these are Irish productions.

There is a nice distinction between aqua vitae and aqua vini in the Red Book of Ossory, which was rescued by Dr. Graves from a heap of rubbish, the result of a fire in Kilkenny Castle in 1839. MacGeoghegan, in his annotations on the death of the chieftain above-mentioned, observes that the drink was not _aqua vitae_ to him, but rather _aqua mortis_; and he further remarks, that this is the first notice of the use of _aqua vitae_, usquebaugh, or whisky, in the Irish annals. Mead was made from honey, and beer from malt; and these were, probably, the princ.i.p.al liquors at the early period[260] of which we are now writing. As to the heath beer of Scandinavian fame, it is probable that the heather was merely used as a tonic or aromatic ingredient, although the author of a work, published in London in 1596, ent.i.tled _Sundrie Newe and Artificial Remedies against Famine_, does suggest the use of heath tops to make a ”pleasing and cheape drink for Poor Men, when Malt is extream Deare;”

much, we suppose, on the same principle that shamrocks and gra.s.s were used as a subst.i.tute for potatoes in the famine year, when the starving Irish had no money to buy Indian corn. But famine years were happily rare in Ireland in the times of which we write; and it will be remembered that on one such occasion the Irish king prayed to G.o.d that he might die, rather than live to witness the misery he could not relieve.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOULD FOR CASTING BRONZE CELTS.]

It would appear that b.u.t.ter was also a plentiful product then as now.

Specimens of bog b.u.t.ter are still preserved, and may be found in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. The b.u.t.ter was thus entombed either for safety, or to give it that peculiar flavour which makes it resemble the old dry Stilton cheese, so much admired by the modern _bon vivant_. A writer in the _Ulster Archaeological Journal_ mentions that he found a quant.i.ty of red cows' hair mixed with this b.u.t.ter, when boring a hole in it with a gouge. It would appear from this as if the b.u.t.ter had been made in a cow-skin, a fas.h.i.+on still in use among the Arabs. A visitor to the Museum (Mr. Wilmot Chetwode) asked to see the b.u.t.ter from Abbeyleix. He remarked that some cows' heads had been discovered in that neighbourhood, which belonged to the old Irish long-faced breed of cattle; the skin and hair remained on one head, and that was red. An a.n.a.lysis of the b.u.t.ter proved that it was probably made in the same way as the celebrated Devons.h.i.+re cream, from which the b.u.t.ter in that part of England is generally prepared. The Arabs and Syrians make their b.u.t.ter now in a similar manner. There is a curious account of Irish b.u.t.ter in the _Irish Hudibras_, by William Moffat, London, 1755, from which it appears that bog b.u.t.ter was then well known:--

”But let his faith be good or bad, He in his house great plenty had Of burnt oat bread, and b.u.t.ter found, With garlick mixt, in boggy ground; So strong, a dog, with help of wind, By scenting out, with ease might find.”

A lump of b.u.t.ter was found, twelve feet deep, in a bog at Gortgole, county Antrim, rolled up in a coa.r.s.e cloth. It still retains visibly the marks of the finger and thumb of the ancient dame who pressed it into its present shape.

Specimens of cheese of great antiquity have also been discovered. It was generally made in the shape of bricks,[261] probably for greater convenience of carriage and pressure in making. Wax has also been discovered, which is evidently very ancient. A specimen may be seen in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. According to the Book of Rights, the use of wax candles was a royal prerogative:--

”A hero who possesses five prerogatives, Is the King of Laighlin of the fort of Labhraidh: The fruit of Almhain [to be brought to him] to his house; And the deer of Gleann Searraigh; To drink by [the light of] fair wax candles, At Din Riogh, is very customary to the king.”[262]

In this matter, at least, the Irish kings and princes were considerably in advance of their Anglo-Saxon neighbours. Wright informs us[263] that their candle was a mere ma.s.s of fat, plastered round a wick, and stuck upon an upright stick: hence the name candlestick.

It is probable that fire-light was, however, the princ.i.p.al means of a.s.sisting the visual organs after dark in both countries. Until comparatively recent times, fires were generally made on square, flat stones, and these could be placed, as appears to have been the case at Tara, in different parts of any large hall or apartment. There was sometimes a ”back stone” to support the pile of wood and turf. The smoke got out how best it might, unless where there was a special provision made for its exit, in the shape of a round hole in the roof. At a later period a ”brace” was sometimes made for conducting it. The brace was formed of upright stakes, interlaced with twigs, and plastered over, inside and outside, with prepared clay--the earliest idea of the modern chimney.

Macaulay[264] gives us a picture of an ancient Roman fire-side, and the occupations of those who sat round it. We can, perhaps, form a more accurate and reliable idea of the dress, amus.e.m.e.nts, and occupations of those who surrounded the hall-fires of ancient Tara, or the humble, domestic hearths of the crannoges or wattled houses.

The amus.e.m.e.nts of the pre-Christian Celt were, undeniably, intellectual.

Chess has already been mentioned more than once in this work as a constant occupation of princes and chieftains. Indeed, they appear to have sat down to a game with all the zest of a modern amateur. A few specimens of chessmen have been discovered: a king, elaborately carved, is figured in the Introduction to the Book of Rights. It belonged to Dr.

Petrie, and was found, with some others, in a bog in the county Meath.

The chessmen of ancient times appear to have been rather formidable as weapons. In the _Tain bo Chuailgne_, Cuchullain is represented as having killed a messenger, who told him a lie, with a chessman, ”which pierced him to the centre of his brain.” English writers speak of the use of chess immediately after the Conquest, and say that the Saxons learned the game from the Danes. The Irish were certainly acquainted with it at a much earlier period; if we are to credit the Annals, it was well known long before the introduction of Christianity. Wright gives an engraving of a Quarrel at Chess, in which Charles, the son of the Emperor Charlemagne, is represented knocking out the brains of his adversary with a chessboard. The ill.u.s.tration is ludicrously graphic, and the unfortunate man appears to submit to his doom with a touching grace of helpless resignation.

We may then suppose that chess was a favourite evening amus.e.m.e.nt of the Celt. Chessboards at least were plentiful, for they are frequently mentioned among the rights of our ancient kings. But music was the Irish amus.e.m.e.nt _par excellence_; and it is one of the few arts for which they are credited. The princ.i.p.al Irish instruments were the harp, the trumpet, and the bagpipe. The harp in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, usually known as Brian Boroimhe's harp, is supposed, by Dr.

Petrie, to be the oldest instrument of the kind now remaining in Europe.

It had but one row of strings, thirty in number; the upright pillar is of oak, and the sound-board of red sallow. The minute and beautiful carving on all parts of the instrument, attests a high state of artistic skill at whatever period it was executed. As the harp is only thirty-two inches high, it is supposed that it was used by ecclesiastics in the church services, Cambrensis[265] mentions this custom; and there is evidence of its having existed from the first introduction of Christianity. Harps of this description are figured on the knees of ecclesiastics on several of our ancient stone crosses.

The subject of Irish music would require a volume, and we cannot but regret that it must be dismissed so briefly. The form of the harp has been incorrectly represented on our coins. It was first a.s.sumed in the national arms about the year 1540. When figured on the coins of Henry VIII., the artist seems to have taken the Italian harp of twenty-four strings for his model; but in the national arms sketched on the map of Ireland in the State Papers, executed in the year 1567, the form is more correct. That the Irish possessed this musical instrument in pre-Christian times, cannot be doubted. The ornamental cover of an Irish MS., which Mr. Ferguson considers to date prior to A.D. 1064, contains five examples of the harp of that period. This, and the sculptured harp at Nieg, in Ross.h.i.+re, are believed to be the earliest delineations of the perfect harp. Dr. Bunting gives a sketch of a harp and harper, taken from one of the compartments of a sculptured cross at Ullard, county Kilkenny. This is a remarkable example. The cross is supposed to be older than that of Monasterboice, which was erected A.D. 830, and this is believed to be the first specimen of a harp without a fore pillar that has been discovered out of Egypt. If the Irish harp be really a variety of the cithara, derived through an Egyptian channel, it would form another important link in the chain of evidence, which leads us back to colonization from Egypt through Scythia. Captain Wilford observes,[266] that there may be a clue to the Celtic word bard in the Hindoo _bardatri_; but the Irish appellation appears to be of comparatively modern use. It is, however, a noticeable fact, that the farther we extend our inquiries, the more forcibly we are directed to the East as the cradle of our music. Several recent travellers have mentioned the remarkable similarity between Celtic airs and those which they heard in different parts of Asia.[267] Sir W. Ouseley observed, at the close of the last century, that many Hindoo melodies possessed the plaintive simplicity of the Scotch and Irish.

A German scholar has written a work, to prove that the pentatonic scale was brought over by the Celts from Asia, and that it was preserved longer in Scotland than elsewhere, on account of the isolated position of that country.[268] The Phoenicians are supposed to have invented the _kinnor, trigonon_, and several other of the most remarkable instruments of antiquity. Their skill as harpists, and their love of music, are indicated by the prophetic denunciation in Ezechiel, where the ceasing of songs and the sound of the harp are threatened as a calamity they were likely specially to feel.

We give at least one evidence that the Irish monks practised the choral performance of rhythmical hymns. Colgan supplies the proof, which we select from one of the Latin hymns of St. Columba:--