1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

1 CUPS AND THEIB CUSTOMS. therefore commence our history at the time . . . . . . " when Gad made clioice 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 primaeval draughty for "Adam's ale 5J 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 pro- genitor 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 a 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 Sehale, the Danish Skoal) and, coming to our own shores, in the Cornish