baked meats; but for a fish dinner—for a banquet in Lent—there was not in the land anything to compare with the dinners at Ely! Nor was there lack of the fish[77] that swim the salt sea, or of the shell-fish that are taken on the sea-coast, or of the finny tribes that come up the river to spawn; the fishermen of Lynn were very devout to Saint Etheldreda, and made a good penny by supplying the monks; they ascended the Ouse with the best of their sea-fish in their boats, and with every fish that was in season, or that they knew how to take. And so, at this late November festival there were skates and plaice, sturgeon and porpoises, oysters and cockles spread upon my Lord Abbat’s table. Of the sheep and beeves we speak not; all men know the richness of the pasture that springs up from the annually inundated meadows,[78] and the bounty of the nibbling crop that grows on the upland slopes with the wild thyme and the other savoury herbs that turn mutton into venison. Of the wild boars of the forest and fen only the hure or head was served up in this Aula Magna, the inferior parts being kept below for the use of the lay-brothers and hinds, or to be distributed by the hospitaller to the humbler degrees of pilgrims and strangers, or to be doled out to the poor of the town of Ely—for wot ye, when the Lord Abbat Thurstan feasted in Ely none fasted there: no! not the poorest palmer that ever put cockle-shell in his cap or took the pilgrim’s staff in his hand to visit the blessed shrine of Saint Etheldreda! Of the wild buck, though less abundant in this fenny country than the boar, nought was served up for my Lord Abbat and his own particular guests except the tender succulent haunch; the lay-brothers and the loaf-eaters of the house, and the poor pilgrims and the poor of the town, got all the rest. The fat fowls of Norfolk, the capons of Caen in Normandie, and the pavoni or peacocks that first came from Italie a present from the _Legatus à latere_ of his holiness the Pope, were kept and fattened in my Lord Abbat’s farm-yard; and well did his coquinarius know how to cook them! To the wild-fowl there was no end, and Elfric, our bold novice, the son of Goodman Hugh, who dwelt by Saint Ovin’s Cross, hard by the village of Haddenham, and who had been a fen-fowler from his youth, could have told you how facile it was to ensnare the crane[79] and the heron, the wild duck and teal, and the eccentric and most savoury snipe. Well, we ween, before men cut down the covering woods, and drained the marshes, and brought too many people into the fens and too many great ships up the rivers, the whole land of Saint Etheldreda was like one great larder; and my Lord Abbat had only to say, “Go forth and take for me so many fowl, or fish, or boars,” and it was done. It is an antique and venerable proverb, that which sayeth good eating demands good drinking. The country of the fens was not productive of apple-trees, and the ale and beer that were drunk in the