ire fame by swallowing
great quantities of meat and drink." The earliest existing carol known
to antiquaries is in the Anglo-Norman language, and contains
references to the drinking customs of the period:--

"To English ale, and Gascon wine,
And French, doth Christmas much incline--
And Anjou's too;
He makes his neighbour freely drink,
So that in sleep his head doth sink
Often by day.
May joys flow from God above
To all those who Christmas love.

Lords, by Christmas and the host
Of this mansion hear my toast--
Drink it well--
Each must drain his cup of wine,

And I the first will toss off mine:
Thus I advise,
Here then I bid you all _Wassail_,
Cursed be he who will not say Drinkhail."[17]

[Illustration: WASSAILING AT CHRISTMASTIDE.]

Proceeding with our historical narrative we come now to

[Illustration]

THE ROMANTIC REIGN OF RICHARD THE FIRST,

surnamed Coeur de Lion, the second son of Henry II. and Eleanor of
Aquitaine, who succeeded to the English throne on the death of his
father in 1189. Richard is generally supposed to have derived his
surname from a superiority of animal courage; but, if the metrical
romance bearing his name, and written in the thirteenth century, be
entitled to credit, he earned it nobly and literally, by plucking out
the heart of a lion, to whose fury he had been exposed by the Duke of
Austria for having slain his son with a blow of his fist. In the
numerous descriptions afforded by the romance Richard is a most
imposing personage. He is said to have carried with him to the
Crusades, and to have afterwards presented to Tancred, King of Sicily,
the wonder-working sword of King Arthur--

"The gude sword Caliburne
that Arthur luffed so well."

He is also said to have carried a shaft, or lance, 14 feet in length,
and

"An axe for the nones,
To break therewith the Sarasyns bones.
The head was wrought right wele,
Therein was twenty pounds of steel."

But, without attempting to follow Richard through all the brilliant
episodes of his romantic career, there can be no doubt that he was a
king of great strength and courage, and that his valorous deeds won
the admiration of poets and chroniclers, who have surrounded him with
a splendid halo of romance. Contemporary writers tell us that while
Richard kept magnificent Christmases abroad with the King of Sicily
and other potentates, his justicia