“Bride-Ale, Bride-Bush, and Bride-Stake are nearly synonymous terms, and are all derived from the circumstance of the bride’s selling ale on the wedding-day, for which she received, by way of contribution, whatever handsome price the friends assembled on the occasion chose to pay her for it.” (Brand, “Pop. Ant.,” vol. ii. p. 143, art. “Bride-Ales.”) In this article he introduces the story from Mungo Park already given in these pages, and seems to have a suspicion that the custom above described could be traced back to a rather unsavory origin. The derivation of the English word “bridal” is very obscure; Fosbroke says that the word “bride-ale” comes from the bride’s selling ale on her wedding-day, and the friends contributing what they liked in payment of it.—(“Cyclop. of Antiq.,” vol. ii. p. 818, under “Marriage” and “Bride-Ales.”) The Latin name for beer or ale was “cerevisia,” which would seem to be a derivative from the name of the goddess. It may, in earlier ages, have been a beverage dedicated to that goddess, employed in her libations, and held sacred as the means of producing the condition of inebriation, which in all nations has been looked upon as sacred. Réclus tells that there are still nations who regard their brewers as priests, and there are others who exalt their milkmen to that office: “Les Chewsoures du Caucase ont leurs prêtres brasseurs; les Todas des Neilgherries leurs divins fromagiers.”—(“Les Primitifs,” p. 116, article “Les Inoits Occidentaux.”) Hazlitt mentions the case where the Fairies, having a mock baptism and no water at hand, made use of strong beer.—(“Fairy Tales,” London, 1875, p. 385.) Beer would appear entitled to claim as old an origin as alcohol; it is mentioned in the sacred books of the Buddhists of Tibet: “La Bière d’hiver (dguntchang).”—(“Pratimoksha Sutra,” translated by W. W. Rockhill, Paris, 1885, Société Asiatique.) XXXII. PARTURITION. For the cure of sterility, Pliny says that “authors of the very highest repute ... recommend the application of a pessary made of the fresh excrement voided by an infant at the moment of its birth.” The urine of eunuchs was considered to be “highly beneficial as a promoter of fruitfulness in females.”—(Lib. xxviii. cap. 18.) “A hawk’s dung, taken in honeyed wine, would appear to render females fruitful.”—(Idem, lib. xxx. c. 44.) “Ut mulier concipiat, infantis masculi stercus quod primum enatus emittet, suppositum locis mulieris conceptionem facit et præstat.”—(Sextus Placitus, “De Medicamentis ex Animalibus,” Lyons, 1537, pages not numbered, article “De Puello et Puella Virgine.”)