An important collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry is still preserved under the title of the _Exeter Book_, the original MS. of which is kept at Exeter: being a portion of the gift of books to the Church at Exeter by Bishop Leofric in the eleventh century. It is a medley of legends, religious songs, apophthegms, riddles, &c. These riddles, commonly called _Symposii Ænigmata_, were very popular among the Saxons, whether the meaning of the title be ‘Riddles composed by Symposius,’ or ‘Nuts to crack after dinner.’ Two specimens will suffice. The first, probably taken from the story of Lot-- There sat a man at his wine With his two wives, And his two sons, And his two daughters, Own sisters, And their two sons, Comely first-born children; The father was there Of each one Of the noble ones, With the uncle and the nephew: There were five in all Men and women Sitting there. The second is a very ancient specimen of that kind of ballad of which the modern _John Barleycorn_ is the anti-type:-- A part of the earth is Prepared beautifully, With the hardest, And with the sharpest, And with the grimmest Of the productions of men, Cut and ... Turned and dried, Bound and twisted, Bleached and awakened, Ornamented and poured out, Carried afar To the doors of people, It is joy in the inside Of living creatures, It knocks and slights Those, of whom before while alive A long while It obeys the will, And expostulateth not, And then after death It takes upon it to judge, To talk variously. It is greatly to seek By the wisest man, What this creature is.[22] The principal drinks which the Saxons adopted were wine, mead, ale, cider, and piment. The permission granted by the Emperor Probus to plant vines has already been mentioned, as well as the testimony to their existence by the historian Bede. John Bagford, a book collector and antiquary of the seventeenth century, says:-- I have often thought, and am now fully persuaded, that the planting of vines in the adjacent parts about this city was first of all begun by the Romans, an industrious people, and famous for their skill in agriculture and gardening, as may appear from their _rei agrariæ scriptores_, as well as from Pliny and other authors. We had a vineyard in East Smithfield, another in Hatton Garden (which at this time is called Vine Street), and a third in St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Many places in the country bear the name of the _Vineyard_ to this day, especially in the ancient monasteries, as Canterbury, Ely, Abingdon, &c., which were left as such by the Romans.[23]