OR, SONGS, BALLADS, EPIGRAMS, AND ANECDOTES RELATING TO BEER, MALT, AND
HOPS.
Collected and arranged by W. T. MARCHANT.
CONTENTS:--Introduction.--History.--Cards and Wassail
Songs.--Church Ales and Observances.--Whitsun
Ales.--Political.--Harvest.--General.--Barley and Malt.--Hops.--Scotch
Songs.--Local and Dialect.--Trade Songs.--Oxford Songs.--Ale
Wives.--Brewers.--Drinking Clubs and Customs.--Royal and Noble
Drinkers.--Black Beer.--Drinking Vessels.--Warm Ale.--Facts, Scraps,
and Ana.
The volume will contain much curious and out-of-the-way information,
embracing a short sketch of the rise and progress of the art of
brewing in this country; an account of the laws relating to beer,
and the statutes against drunkenness; of the manners and customs of
“malt worms” and mug-house clubs; and the obsolete phraseology of
“toss-pots,” such as “super-nagulum,” “upsee-freeze,” “shoeing horns,”
and “carousing the hunter’s hoop.” The author will pay attention to the
drinking customs more or less connected with the Church--Whitsun Ales,
Bride Ales, Bride Bush, Bride Wain, and the like; the chants of the
wassail-bowl, of the Hock Cart, and the Sheepshearing and Harvest Home
rejoicings--
“Here’s a health to the Barley mow, brave boys,
Here’s a health to the Barley mow”--
and Brazenose songs in honour of the brew for which that college is
renowned. Then there are lyrics pertaining to particular sorts and
conditions of men, as the songs of the threshers and tinkers, sailors
and soldiers, and the clubs, which may be considered as forming a class
of themselves. This work will doubtless prove a valuable and pleasant
addition to the library of the student of history and lover of poetry.
_Printed on Whatman’s hand-made paper at the Chiswick Press, price 1s._