A recent writer, referring to the story, says: "It is just possible that the grain of truth contained in the tradition may be, that all the northern nations, as the Swedes still do, used the narcotic gale (_Myrica gale_), which grows among the heather, to give bitterness and strength to the barley beer; and hence the belief that the beer was made chiefly of the heather itself." I do not hold this. I suspect that the ale was metheglin, made of the honey extracted from the heather by the bees. Metheglin is still made round Dartmoor, but it is only good and "heady" when many years old. Avoid that which is younger than three winters. When it is older, drink sparingly.[29] It is quite certain that the ancient Irish brewed a beer, which we can hardly think came from barley. S. Bridget has left but one poetical composition behind her, and that begins:-- "I should like a great lake of ale For the King of kings. I should like the whole company of Heaven To be drinking it eternally!" The heath was doubtless largely used in former times, from the Prehistoric Age, not only as a thatch for the huts and hovels, but as a litter for the beds. Indeed, heath or heather is still employed in the Scottish Highlands along with the peat earth as a substitute for mortar between the stones of which a cottage is built. And that heather was employed for bedding who can question? Leather is tanned even better with heath than with oak-bark, and of it a brilliant yellow dye is produced. But--ah, me! the heath and the heather!--it is not for the beer produced therefrom, not for the tan, not for the dye, that we love it. Wonderful is the sight of the moorside flushed with pink when the heather is in bloom--it is as though, like a maiden, it had suddenly awoke to the knowledge that it was lovely, and blushed with surprise and pleasure at the discovery. But how short-lived is the heath! It lies dead--a warm chocolate-brown, mantling the hills from October till July. Only in the midsummer does it timidly put forth its leaves--its spines rather--and then it flushes again in September. It blooms for about a fortnight, perhaps three weeks, and then subsides into its brown winter sleep. But what browns! what splendours of colour we have when the fern is in its russet decay and the heather is in its velvet sleep! To him who wanders over the moor, and looks at the flowers at his feet, some day comes the proud felicity of lighting on the white heath--and that found ensures happiness. And I, as I make my _congé_, hand it to my reader with best wishes for his enjoyment of that region I love best in the world. FOOTNOTES: [29] Yet there is the Devonshire white ale--the composition of which is a secret--that is still drunk in the South Hams, and in one tavern in Tavistock. It is a singular, curdy liquor, in the manufacture of which egg is employed. Is heath used also? _Qu en sabe?_ INDEX Abbots' Way, 210-11. Algeria, 36. Amusing scene, 256.