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The Swarm: Wales

Bevan says, "In some parts of Wales the refuse combs are brewed with malt, spices, etc., and the produce is called Braggot, a name derived from the old British words brag and gots, the former meaning malt, the latter honey-comb."

Metheglin is said to have been mead of the best quality, and in literature metheglin is frequently used instead of mead.

Butler instructs us thus concerning the virtue and the making of burnt metheglin: — "And as good and old metheglin excelleth all wines, as well for pleasantness in taste as for health; so being burnt, it is better than any burnt wine, for comforting and settling of a weak and sick stomach, and for creating the natural heat. "The manner of burning it (if you know not) may be this: First set on the fire a deep skillet or kettle almost full of water: when it boileth, put in a pewter pot full of metheglin: before that beginneth to boil, skim it, and put in two or three bruised cloves, and a branch of rosemary : then beat the yolk of an egg in a dish: put into it a spoonful of the mead cold : and stir them together, to keep the yolk from curdling: then put to that a spoonful of the hot meth; and after that another, and an other, always beating them together: and then, some and some, put all into the pot, still stirring it about. Then as soon as it boileth, take up the pot: and (saving your hands harmless) pour it into another warm pot of like capacity, firing it as it runneth: and so brew it till it will burn no more. A metheglin posset is of the like virtue."

To-day metheglin is made and used principally as a medicine, being esteemed for coughs and colds, though once the honey drinks were prized as good wines are now. "There are three things in court which must be communicated to the king, before they are made known to any other person. Ist, Every sentence of the judge; 2nd, every new song; and, 3d, every cask of mead," are the commands found in an ancient law of Wales.

Moreover, at the courts of the Princes of Wales the mead-maker was the eleventh person in dignity and took precedence of the physician.

Hydromel, as the name implies, is composed of honey and water, and sometimes is not fermented, but drunk at once; again, however, it is indistinguishable from mead, being but the Greek name for that liquor.

Pliny says of the unfermented hydromel that it " is an extremely wholesome beverage for invalids who take nothing but a light diet; it reinvigorates the body, is soothing to mouth and stomach, and by its refreshing properties allays feverish heats. It is well suited for persons of a chilly temperament, or of a weak and pusillanimous constitution." Mead Pliny also considers hydromel valuable in diminishing "asperities of the mind," adding : - "There is no one in whom anger, affliction, sadness, and all the emotions of the mind may not in some degree be modified by diet. It will therefore be worth while to observe what aliments they are which exercise a physical effect, not only upon the body, but the disposition as well."

A piece of advice which it might be wise to heed in these later days, and, if honey and water are indeed efficacious in sweetening an acid nature, to apply them where the symptoms suggest the remedy.

Pliny's hydromel does not differ materially from the mead of other writers, excepting that it is made from purified rain-water, as the following recipe given by him shows:- "There is a wine also made solely of honey and water. For this purpose it is recommended that rain-water should be kept for a period of five years. "Those who show greatest skill content themselves with taking the water just after it has fallen, and boiling it down to one third, to which they add one third in quantity of old honey, and keep the mixture exposed to the rays of a hot sun for forty days after the rising of the Dog-star; others, however, rack it off in the course of ten days, and tightly cork the vessels in which it is kept. This beverage is known as 'hydromeli,' and with age acquires the flavor of wine. It is nowhere more highly esteemed than in Phrygia."