HOW THEY ATE, DRANK, FEASTED, AND ENTERTAINED.

Dinner, the principal meal of the day, was taken late in the afternoon; and there was commonly a light repast or luncheon, called ‘Middle-meal,’ between breakfast and dinner. It was the custom to have better food on Sundays and church festivals than on the other days.

Among the higher classes great care was taken to seat family and guests at table in the order of rank; and any departure from the established usage was sure to lead to quarrels. The king was always attended at banquets by his subordinate kings, and by other lords and chiefs. Those on his immediate right and left had to sit at a respectful distance. While King Cormac Mac Art sat at dinner, fifty military guards remained standing near him.

The manner of arranging the banquets at Tara was generally followed at other royal entertainments. The Banquet-hall here was a long building, with tables arranged along both side-walls. Immediately over the tables were a number of hooks in the wall at regular intervals to hang the shields on. Just before the beginning of the feast all persons left the hall except three:—A Shanachie or historian: a marshal to regulate the order: and a trumpeter. The king and his subordinate kings having first taken their places at the head of the table, the professional ollaves sat down next them. Then the trumpeter blew the first blast, at which the shield-bearers of the lordly guests (for every chief and king had his shield-bearer or squire) came round the door and gave their masters’ shields to the marshal, who, under the direction of the shanachie, hung them on the hooks according to rank, from the highest to the lowest. At the next blast the guests all walked in leisurely, each taking his seat under his own shield (which he knew by special marks).

Only one side of the tables was occupied, namely, the side next the wall: and in order to avoid crowding, the shields were hung at such a distance that when the guests were seated “no man of them would touch another.” This arrangement at table according to rank was continued in Ireland and Scotland down to a recent period, as Scott often mentions in his novels; and it continues still everywhere, though in a less strict form.

At all state banquets particular joints were reserved for certain chiefs, officials, and professional men, according to rank. A thigh was laid before a king, and also before an ollave poet; a haunch before a queen; a leg before a young lord; a head before a charioteer, and so on. A similar custom existed among the ancient Gauls and also among the Greeks. A remnant of this old custom lingered on in Scotland and Ireland down to a period within our own memory. Seventy years ago in some parts of Ireland, when a farmer killed a bullock or a pig, he always sent the head to the smith, so that at certain times of the year you might see the smith’s kitchen garnished with forty or fifty heads hanging round the walls.

In the time of the Red Branch Knights, it was the custom to assign the choicest joint or animal of the whole banquet to the hero who was acknowledged by general consent to have performed the bravest and greatest exploit. This piece was called curath-mir, i.e., ‘the hero’s morsel or share’; and there were often keen contentions among the Red Branch heroes, and sometimes fights with bloodshed, for this coveted joint or piece. This usage, which prevailed among the continental Celts in general, and which also existed among the Greeks, continued in Ireland to comparatively late times.

Tables were, as we have seen, used at the great feasts. But at ordinary meals, high tables, such as we have now, do not seem to have been in general use. There were small low tables, each used no doubt for two or more persons. Often there was a little table laid beside each person, on which his food was placed—the meat on a platter.

Forks are a late invention: of old the fingers were used at eating. In Ireland, as in England and other countries in those times, each person held his knife in the right hand, and used the fingers of the left instead of a fork. The Greeks and Romans had no forks at meals: they used the fingers only, and were supplied with water to wash their hands after eating.

As early as the eighth or ninth century the Irish of the higher classes used napkins at table, for which they had a native word lambrat, i.e., ‘hand-cloth.’ I suppose the chief use they made of it was to wipe the left-hand fingers; which was badly needed. It was the custom, both in monastic communities and in secular life, to take off the shoes or sandals when sitting down to dinner; which was generally done by an attendant. The Romans we know had the same custom. The Irish did not sit up at dinner as we do now; but, like the Romans, they reclined on couches on which the feet also rested; and this was why the shoes were taken off.

In old times people were quite as fond of intoxicating drinks at dinners and banquets as they are now. They sometimes drank more than was good for them too: yet drunkenness was looked upon as reprehensible. At their feasts they often accompanied their carousing with music and singing. Besides plain water and milk, the chief drinks were Ale and Mead or metheglin, which were made at home; and Wine which was imported from France.

In great houses there were professional cooks, who, while engaged in their work, wore a linen apron round them from the hips down, and a flat linen cap on the head. But among ordinary families the women did the cooking.

Meat and fish were cooked by roasting, boiling, or broiling. A spit (bir), made of iron, was regarded as an important household implement. But the spits commonly used in roasting, as well as the skewers for trussing up the joint, were pointed hazel-rods, peeled and made smooth and white. Meat, and even fish, while roasting, were often basted with honey or with a mixture of honey and salt.

In the house of every chief and of every brewy (see p. 119 below) there was at least one bronze Caldron for boiling meat. It was highly valued, as a most important article in the household; and it was looked upon as the special property of the chief or head of the house—much in the same way as his sword and shield. Everywhere we meet with passages reminding us of the great value set on these caldrons. One of them was regarded as a fit present for a king. The caldron was supposed to be kept in continual use, so that food might be always ready for guests whenever they happened to arrive. Many bronze caldrons have been found from time to time, and are now preserved in the National Museum, Dublin—several of beautiful workmanship.

In early ages kitchen utensils were everywhere regarded as important. The inventory of the jewels of the English King Edward III. gives a list of his frying-pans, gridirons, spits, etc. There is a curious provision in the Brehon Law that if any accident occurred to a bystander by the lifting of the joint out of the boiling caldron, the attendant was liable for damages unless he gave the warning:—“Take care: here goes the fleshfork into the caldron!”

Milk was used both fresh and sour: butter was made in a small hand-churn; and cheese of various kinds was made from curds. There were water-mills and querns to grind corn, and sieves to separate the ground corn into meal and flour. The staple food of the great mass of the people was porridge, or, as it is now called in Ireland, stirabout, made of meal, generally oatmeal. It was eaten with honey, butter, or milk, as kitchen or condiment.

All the various kinds of meal and flour were baked into cakes or loaves of different shapes. Flour was usually mixed with water to make dough: but bread made of flour and milk was also much in use. Honey was often kneaded up with cakes as a delicacy: and occasionally the roe of a salmon was similarly used. Wheaten bread was considered the best, as at present: barley-bread was poor. Yeast, or barm, or leaven was used both in baking and in brewing.

The management of Bees was universally understood, and every comfortable householder kept hives in his garden. Wild bees, too, swarmed everywhere—much more plentifully than at present, on account of the extent of woodland. Accordingly honey was very plentiful, and was used with all sorts of dishes. Often at meals each person had placed before him on the table a little dish, sometimes of silver, filled with honey; and each morsel whether of meat, fish, or bread was dipped into it before being conveyed to the mouth. Honey was the chief ingredient in the making of mead.

As the country abounded in forests, thickets, and brakes, the most common Fuel for domestic use was wood: but peat or turf was also much used, cut from a bank with a slaan or turf-spade as at present. Founders and other workers in metal used wood-charcoal, of which that made from birch-wood gave the greatest heat.

Flint and steel with tinder (or spunk) were used for striking and kindling fire. The whole kindling-gear—flint, steel, and tinder—was carried in the girdle-pocket, so as to be ready to hand; and accordingly, fire struck in this way was called tinne-crassa, ‘girdle-fire.’

For Light, dipped candles were used in the better class of houses. Poor people used dipped rushes, which gave a feeble light and burned out quickly. In the houses of the rich they used beeswax candles, as indeed we might expect from the great abundance of bees.Hospitality and generosity were virtues highly esteemed in ancient Ireland; in the old Irish Christian writings indeed they are everywhere praised and inculcated as religious duties; and in the secular literature they are equally prominent. The higher the rank of the person the more was expected from him, and a king should be hospitable without limit. There were all over the country Public Hostels for the free lodging and entertainment of travellers. At the head of each was an officer called a Brewy or Beetagh, a public hospitaller or hosteller, who was held in high honour.

In order to be at all times ready to receive visitors, a brewy was bound to have three kinds of meat cooked and ready to be served up to all who came; three kinds of raw meat ready for cooking; besides animals ready for killing. In one of the law tracts a brewy is quaintly described as “a man of three snouts”:—viz. the snout of a live hog rooting in the fields; the snout of a dead hog on the hooks cooking; and the pointed snout of a plough: meaning that he had plenty of live animals and of meat cooked and uncooked, with a plough and all other tillage appliances.

There should be a number of open roads leading to the house of a brewy, so that it might be readily accessible: and on each road a man was stationed to make sure that no traveller should pass by without calling to be entertained; besides which a light was to be kept burning on the lawn at night to guide travellers from a distance. To enable him to meet this great expense and to pay himself into the bargain, a brewy was allowed a great tract of land free.

Besides the hostels, there were the monasteries, too, where travellers were also boarded and lodged free for the time. And along with all this the people were kind and hospitable in their own houses to strangers and visitors. So we see that travellers were quite as well off then as now: indeed in one respect much better off: for whereas we have to pay a smart charge in an inn or hotel, there was in those times a hearty welcome and no charge at all.

The Irish missionaries carried this fine custom to the Continent in early ages, as they did many others: for they established free hostels in France and Germany, in places where there were no monasteries, chiefly for the use of pilgrims on their way to Rome.