The custom of wearing a crown at solemn feasts was founded on the ancient belief that it was well pleasing to the gods. “If thou performest thy sacrifice [and the meal was a sacrifice] without the wreath upon thy head, the gods will turn from thee,” says a fragment from Sappho. The sense of the nearness of the gods at mealtime and the beautiful old custom of pouring out a bit of wine for the invisible holy guest, were preserved down to the time of the later Romans. We find the custom in vogue with such old sinners as Horace and Juvenal. We shall recall the significance of the wreath as a symbol when we meet the ivy wreath later as a tavern sign. But even in classical antiquity the exercise of free hospitality demanded certain tokens to preserve it from abuse at the hands of fraudulent strangers. For example, the so-called “tessera hospitalis,” a tiny object in the shape of a ram’s head or a fish, was split in halves and shared by each party to the agreement of hospitality. By presenting his half of the “tessera” the stranger could always prove his identity and his claims to a hospitable reception by the family to which he came. Other tokens were small ivory or metal hands carved with appropriate inscriptions. The latter were also sometimes exchanged on the negotiation of treaties between nations. In the medallion cabinet at Paris there is one of these treaty-hands in bronze, commemorating a treaty between the Gallic tribe of the Velavii and a Greek colony--probably Marseilles. This hand of hospitality, like the wreath, was a frequent motive in the development of the tavern sign. In fact, it was so frequent in the German lands that the people were accustomed to call the tavern, in figurative speech, the “place where the good God stretched out his hands.” If we recall the deep symbolic meaning of such signs, we shall not find this naïve expression of the people shocking, like the Puritan Consistory at Geneva, whose narrow-minded prohibition of the angel sign we have already noticed. [Illustration: BESIGHEIM] Now, before passing to the study of the origins of entertainment for pay, with its signs (which were really the first tavern signs) let us turn back to the old Germans, to note their idea of hospitality. The German fathers, too, tell in a beautiful story of the reception of a divine guest in the cottage of a mortal, and of a reward like that which Abraham had for his spirit of friendly aid. In one of the religious songs of the “Edda,” which probably originated in the North-Scottish islands, we read how the god Heimdall, in the disguise of a humble traveler, visited the hut of an aged couple, and was honorably received by them:-- “Then Edda brought forward a loaf of graham bread, Firm, thick and full of hulls; And more, too, she brought to the table, And set thereon the bowl of soup.” RIGSPULA, 4. In the sayings of Hars (i.e., of Odin) the Lofty, the rule of hospitality is stated:--