onditions like the puzzle cups of Staffordshire make. The peg tankards
of ancient date, a very fine example originally belonging to the Abbey
of Glastonbury, afterwards in the possession of Lord Arundel of Wardour,
held two quarts, the pegs dividing its contents into half-pints
according to the Winchester standard. On that remarkable cup the twelve
Apostles were carved round the sides, and on the lid was the scene at
the Crucifixion.

[Illustration: FIG. 21.--TWO WOODEN CUPS.

FIG. 22.--WOODEN FLAGON, WITH COPPER BANDS.

(_In the National Museum of Wales._)]

[Illustration: FIGS. 23, 24.--COCOANUT CUPS (SILVER-MOUNTED).

FIG. 25.--COCOANUT FLAGON.]

It is said that the pegs were first ordered by Edgar, the Saxon king, to
prevent excessive drinking, the tankard being passed round, every man
being expected to drink down to the next peg. Heywood, in his
_Philocathonista_, says: "Of drinking cups, divers and sundry sorts we
have, some of elm, some of box, and some of maple and holly." According
to the quaint spelling of those days there were then in use in Merrie
England: "Mazers, noqqins, whiskins, piggins, cringes, ale-bowls, wassel
bowls, tankard and kames from a pottle to a pint and from a pint to a
gill." The leather cups and tankards or black jacks (see Chapter VIII)
were mostly used in country places by "shepheards and harvesters." A
writer in a work published in the early years of the nineteenth century
says: "Besides metal and wood and pottery we have cups of hornes of
beasts, of cocker nuts, of goords, of eggs of ostriches, and of the
shells of divers fishes."

A simple cocoanut, mounted in silver and made into a cup, perhaps a
century or more ago, is by no means to be despised. Some are beautifully
polished and ornamented with incised work. Contemporary with the earlier
specimens are pots made of ostrich eggs, mounted in silver, regarded of
great value in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the
university colleges possess fine examples, and there are many in the
hands of London silversmiths. Figs. 23 and 24 represent two cocoanut
cups with feet of silver, one engraved with the owner's initials, the
foot being decorated with bead ornament. Fig. 25 is a cocoanut mounted
as a flagon with handle of whalebone and rim and foot of silver. The
use of such cups seems to have been very generally distributed all over
the world, for there are many South American examples, as well as the
English varieties.