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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1895.
tide in August, the Orkney fishermen stopped the harvest of the sea to begin the land harvest, they used to have a ceremonial drink and pray :-"Lord, open the mouth of the grey fish and hold thy hand above the corn." In the Edda, the king produced a large horn out of which his courtiers were obliged to drink when they had committed any trespass against the customs of the court. In Abyssinia, a formal interview is opened by drinking tedge or mead, that is, honey beer. Egyptians, Chinese and Jews drank, and drink, wine at the beginning of an entertainment. The younger Pliny (A. D. 100) describes reverted Christians as offering wine and frankincense before the emperor's statue.s6 The Brazil boatman begins the day with a dram to frighten the fiend. The wassail, that is, according to Hardwick, the waes hael or wax health, bowl of spiced ale, formerly carried with songs by girls on New Year's Eve, with sugar, nutmeg, toast and roasted apples, was, as its name shews, prepared and drunk with the object of securing health, that is, of housing or scaring fiends."
At the Slawa or Guardian feasts among the Slars to the south-west of the Balkans, the chief ceremony is toast-drinking. In the evening, after church, relations who have the same ancestral guardian or Slawa come to the house of the man of their brotherhood who is holding the Slawa feast. They salute the host with the words "May the Slawa be propitious." Each receives a glass of wine and a piece of sacred cake. All stand and ancover, and the senior guest chants: “We drank before as we liked and needed." He then gives the fresh health, the Guardian, and adds: “We drink now to the honour of the divine Slawa. May the Slawa be propitious to all." Glasses are emptied and filled again. A second guest rises and sings: "The Cross; We drank before to the Slawa, we drink now to the Cross.” The glasses are emptied and filled. The third guest chants: "We drink to the Trinity and Pentecost. May the Pentecost feast help all. In house or in field, in water or in wood."49 At their banquets, the modern Pârsis drink the following toasts: - The Creater, Zoroaster, the Fire Temple, the Guardian Angels, the Empress, the Host, and lastly with a short prayer and the burning of incense the Dead. The solemn toasts are ydds, or reminders; the others are either safeguards, salámati, or healths, tandarustí,50
Hecatæus (B. C. 330) and Plutarch (A. D. 46-106) said the Hebrew god and Bacchus are one.51 Though in reply it may be urged that no Jew drank wine in the temple, 52 still it is true that the ceremonial and religious use of wine is a marked feature in Jewish customs. At the wedding of the Beni-Isra'll of Western India, the bridegroom holds a glass with wine in it, in which is the wedding ring. The bridegroom drinks half the wine, pours the rest into the bride's mouth, and dashes the glass to pieces on the ground.53 The Jews drank a cup of consolation at or after a funeral.54 Among the Beni-Isra'ils a funeral ends with a drink.55 At the feast held in the synagogue, and at the close of the Sabbath, a cup of wine is blessed and handed round.56 The Jews used wine in their sacrifices, and, like the Egyptians, poured wine on their altars.67
+1 Guthrie's Old Scottish Customs, p. 176.
4 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 126. * Eng. Illus. Mag. December 1884, p. 191.
48 Wilkinson's Egyptians, Vol. II. p. 221. 46 Pliny's Letters, Book X. Letter 97.
47 Burton's Brasil, Vol. I. p. 405. 18 Compare Hardwick's Traditions, p. 60. The Wassail cup was still in uso in the north of England in 1826 The Denham Tracts, Vol. II, pp. 8 and 9. . St. James's Budget, 4th June 1887, pp. 11 and 12.
" M8. Notes, 1895, 81 Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth : Gill's Notices of the Jews, p. 75. Tacitus, about A. D. 100, refers (History, Book v. Chap. V.) to the belief that the Jews worshipped Bacchus, rejecting it on the ground that the worship of Bacchus was gay and the Jews' worship was gloomy. The belief, that the Jews worshipped Bacchus, probably found support in the likeness between Lao, the Greek form of Javeh or Jehova, and Euios or Evius, # name of Bacchus, and also between the Hebrew Babi, glory, and Sabaoth and the Bacchio cry 'Sabaoi' and the name Sabazius. Further resemblances were the vineleaf ornament in the Jewish temple and the Dionysia-like Feast of Tabernacles. Compare King's Antique Gems, pp. 865-867.
03 Op. cit., loc. cit. 63 Poona Gazetteer, Part I. pp. 512, 516.
54 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II. p. 140. 46 Poona Gazetteer, Part I. p. 585.
* Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. III. p. 1401. BT Wilkinson's Egyptiaris, 2nd Series, Vol. II, p. 856; Whiston's Josephus, Book IIL. Chap. 9, or Bohn's Josephus, Vol. I. p. 219 ; Jewish War, Vol. XIII. p. 6; Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth, p. 407.
