Gerard Legh, in his “Accedence of Armorie,” affirms that “the Cocke is the royallest birde that is, and of himself a king, for Nature hath crowned hime with a perpetuall Diademe, to him and to his posteritie for ever. He is the valiantest in battle of all birdes, for he will rather die than yeelde to his aduersarie.” And one old writer goes so far as to declare that the lion, whom we have always been taught to regard as generosity itself, feels his royal title somewhat impaired by the rivalry of the barn-door fowl, and that the pretension to royalty suggested by the scarlet crest is distasteful to the king of beasts, who can brook no idea of a rival. There was throughout the Middle Ages an idea that one was able to incorporate[85] any desirable quality by looking around for some creature of which it was a characteristic, and then promptly making some culinary preparation of which this creature’s flesh should be a leading ingredient. “If,” says one of these sages, “you would have a man talkative give him tongues, and seek out for him water-frogs, wilde geese and ducks, and other such creatures, notorious for their continual noise-making,” and thus the sturdy self-assertion and valour of the cock naturally suggested the idea that the weakly and retiring would find in him valuable nutriment. In an old cookery book we find “how to still a cocke for a weak body that is in consumption, through long sicknesse.” The cock selected must be a red one,[86] and not too old. Having cut him into quarters, he must be put into an earthenware pot with “the rootes of Fennell, Parcely and Succory, Corans, whole Mace, Annise seeds, and liquorice scraped and slyced.” Half a pint of rose-water and a quart of white wine are then to be added, together with “two or three cleane Dates, a few prunes and raysons,” and then all must stew gently for the space of twelve hours. Finally, “streine out the broth into some cleane vessell, and give thereof unto the weak person morning and evening, warmed and spiced as pleaseth the patient.” Our ancestors, even when in rude health, quaffed a beverage known as cock-ale, in order that they might preserve their vigour. This drink—strong ale mixed with the broth of a boiled cock—is mentioned in the old plays, such as “Woman turned Bully,” written in the year 1675; in Digby’s book of receipts—“The Closet Open,”—published in 1648, and divers other medical and culinary works of the Middle Ages. In these same “good old times,” the liver of a male goat, the tail of a shrew-mouse, the brain and comb of a cock, the worm under the tongue of a mad dog, pounded ants, cuckoo-broth, were all suggested as remedies for hydrophobia, though, like the fish-brine of Pliny or the pounded crab of Galen, they must have been but sorry reeds to rest upon in the dreadful paroxysms of this terrible malady.