1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

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

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

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

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