caused a seat to be prepared, magnificently decked and surrounded with
curtains, and underneath it the wicked woman caused a deep pit to be dug."
The author from whom the above translation is quoted adds with grim
humour, "It is clear that this room was on the ground floor."

[Illustration: Anglo Saxon Furniture of About the Tenth Century.

(_From old MSS. in the British Museum._)

1. A Drinking Party.
2. A Dinner Party, in which the attendants are serving the meal on the
spits on which it has been cooked.
3. Anglo-Saxon Beds.
]

There are in the British Museum other old manuscripts whose illustrations
have been laid under contribution representing more innocent occupations
of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. "The seat on the däis," "an Anglo-Saxon
drinking party," and other illustrations which are in existence, prove
generally that, when the meal had finished, the table was removed and
drinking vessels were handed round from guest to guest; the storytellers,
the minstrels, and the gleemen (conjurers) or jesters, beguiling the
festive hour by their different performances.

[Illustration: The Seat on The Daïs.]

[Illustration: Saxon State Bed.]

Some of these Anglo-Saxon houses had formerly been the villas of the
Romans during their occupation, altered and modified to suit the habits