expertness in Cookery, as they had no oil, and we hear nothing of
their butter, they used only sheep and oxen, eating neither hares,
though so greatly esteemed at Rome, nor hens, nor geese, from a
notion of superstition. Nor did they eat fish. There was little corn
in the interior part of the island, but they lived on milk and flesh
[11]; though it is expressly asserted by Strabo that they had no
cheese [12]. The later Britons, however, well knew how to make the
best use of the cow, since, as appears from the laws of _Hoel Dda_,
A.D. 943, this animal was a creature so essential, so common and
useful in Wales, as to be the standard in rating fines, &c. [13].

Hengist, leader of the Saxons, made grand entertainments for king
Vortigern [14], but no particulars have come down to us; and
certainly little exquisite can be expected from a people then so
extremely barbarous as not to be able either to read or write.
'Barbari homines a septentrione, (they are the words of Dr. Lister)
caseo et ferina subcruda victitantes, omnia condimenta adjectiva
respuerunt' [15].

Some have fancied, that as the Danes imported the custom of hard and
deep drinking, so they likewise introduced the practice of
gormandizing, and that this word itself is derived from _Gormund_,
the name of that Danish king whom Alfred the Great persuaded to be
christened, and called Athelstane [16], Now 'tis certain that
Hardicnut stands on record as an egregious glutton [17], but he is
not particularly famous for being a _curious Viander_; 'tis true
again, that the Danes in general indulged excessively in feasts and
entertainments [18], but we have no reason to imagine any elegance
of Cookery to have flourished amongst them. And though Guthrum, the
Danish prince, is in some authors named _Gormundus_ [19]; yet this is