The archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland . land, as elsewhere, from a very early period. This probably ori-ginated in part from superstitious feelings, arising from some specialvirtue attached to the wood of the majjle tree. But its close grain,the beauty of its variegated surfoce, and its susceptibility of highpolish, were doubtless the chief reasons for its continued use as thematerial for the pledge-cup and wassail bowl ; and when it was re-placed by other woods, or even 1)y the precious metals, the old name wasstill retained. The woodcut represents a mazer of very simple form,and
The archaeology and prehistoric annals of Scotland . land, as elsewhere, from a very early period. This probably ori-ginated in part from superstitious feelings, arising from some specialvirtue attached to the wood of the majjle tree. But its close grain,the beauty of its variegated surfoce, and its susceptibility of highpolish, were doubtless the chief reasons for its continued use as thematerial for the pledge-cup and wassail bowl ; and when it was re-placed by other woods, or even 1)y the precious metals, the old name wasstill retained. The woodcut represents a mazer of very simple form,and probably of an early age,made not of the maple butthe ash, a tree famed of oldfor many supernatural quali-ties. It was found in thedeep draw-well, in the ruinedcastle of Merdon, near Hurs-ly, built by Bishop Henry deBlois, The cij^husde mazero frequently figuresamong the household effectsof citizens of the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries, andis no less commonly alluded to Ijy the elder poets, as Arcluiiil. Juiini, Vdl. iii. ji. ; in Robert de ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 673 Brunnes version of Waces Bni^t, written in the latter part of thethirteenth century, where mazers of rich price are specified amongtlie gifts bestowed by king Arthur on his foreign guests. The mazerfigures also in the inventory of goods of the Sheriff of Nottingham,taken by Lytell John, as printed by Wynken de Worde, in thepopular black-letter ballad,— A Lytell geste of liobyn Hode ; andit is thus introduced in the fine old Scottish ballad of Gill Morice, Then up an spak the bauld bai-on, An angry man was he; Hes taen the table wi his foot, Sae has he wi his knee,Till siller cup an mazer dishIn flinders he garrd flee. The mazer cup was evidently regarded as a family heirloom, andas such inscribed with quaint legends and pious aphorisms, and some-times decorated with rich chasing and carving, as Chaucer has sobeautifully described in the Mazer yrought of the maple, men-tioned in his Shep
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookidarchaeologyp, bookyear1851
