1869 Drinking Cups and their Customs (Mixellany)

COTS

AND

THEIR CUSTOMS.

Shala,

So ale-goblets in Celtic were termed

Kalt-skaal;

and, though applied in other ways, the word lingers in

the Highland Scotch as

SMel

(a tub), and in the Ork-

neys the same word does duty for a flagon. From this

root, though more immediately derived from

ScutelM,

a concave vessel, through the Italian

Scodella

and the

French

Ecuelie

(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

Gestis Longobard./ says,

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Albin slew Cuininurtt, and

having carried away his head, converted it into a drink-

ing-vessel, which kind of cup with us is called Schala/'

The same thing is said of the Boii by Livy, of the Scy-

thians by Herodotus, of the Scordisci by liufus Festus,

of the Gauls by Diodorus Sicnlus, and of the Celts by

Silius Italicus. Hence it is that llagnar Lodbrog, in his

death-song, consoles himself with the reflection,

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I shall

soon drink beer from hollow cups made of skulls/'

In more modern timesj 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

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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

seoll

passed about j and, as a still better illustration,

Calderwood says that drinking the king's

skoh

meant

the drinking of his cup in honour of him, which,