Over the last week I’ve done little but drink a fair amount of Mead, played games and written rambling blog posts. Ah holidays. Whether the blog, or I, survive into next week will be determined by the quest to find some more to drink.
In between to find out more, I’ve been trying to soak the label off a bottle of Lindisfarne. The writings on the wrong side see, and looking at it all curved makes my head hurt. In disgust I’ve given up and went to the website, to find this:
The word "honeymoon" is derived from the ancient Norse custom of having Newly-Weds drink Mead for a whole moon in order to increase their fertility and therefore their chances of a happy and fulfilled marriage. World famous Lindisfarne Mead is not only the connoisseur's choice but makes a supreme drink for young and old alike whatever the season. To many it is regarded the "nectar of the gods"
Now this is a delightful image, get married and then spend a month as newlyweds drinking nothing but Mead. But is it true? Wikipedia reckons not:
In many parts of Europe it was traditional to supply a newly married couple with enough mead for a month, ensuring happiness and fertility. Though some believe it is from this practice we get the word honeymoon[13][14], this etymology is not accepted by linguists[citation needed].
Although if I’m quoting from an un-cited reference from a Wiki, I must be loosing it, perhaps I have drunk too much Mead this week. No matter, I’d like to live in a world where it is true, so let’s make it so. In the unlikely circumstances I get married, I pledge to drink nothing but Mead for a month.
Here's another reference, suggesting I wouldn't need to get married first.
ReplyDeleteThe Honeymoon originated before the wedding
Miriam-Webster defines honeymoon as “a period of harmony immediately following marriage“. However, in the beginning, the honeymoon existed long before the marriage ceremony came into being.
The first recorded appearance of the term honeymoon came in 1546 - but the ritual goes back much further. In earliest days, the man simply abducted the woman of his choice and took her into hiding. This lasted at least as long as it took for her angry relatives to stop searching for her. Normally, this was about one month, as marked by the phases of the moon. Thus the “moon” in honeymoon.
While in hiding, the couple would partake of mead - a wine made of water and old honey. According to Pliny the Elder, it consisted of “one part of old honey” and “three parts of water”. The mixture was then left in the sun for forty days, though, according to Pliny, some left it to ferment only nine days. Pliny went on to say, “with age it attains the flavor of wine”. As time passed, it was believed that, if the couple drank mead daily during the honeymoon, they would be assured of the birth of sons. One has to wonder how much mead Henry VIII would have drunk! Anyway, the mead provided the “honey” part of the honeymoon.
Symbolism of the Honeymoon
The term honeymoon is packed with symbolism. The mead, or honey wine, is sweet and symbolizes the particular sweetness of the first month of marriage. It is a time free of the stresses and tensions everyday life puts on the relationship as time goes on. The moon symbolizes the phases or cycles of the couple’s relationship as it waxes and wanes from full moon to full moon. Like the moon, the couple’s relationship would have its brighter moments and its darker ones. Being tied in with the moon cycle, the one-month period of time was considered associated with the woman's menstrual cycle, and thus, fertility.
Of course, the notion of hiding away during their honeymoon has led to the present practice of couples keeping their plans secret. Though the reason has changed. No longer is it fear of physical violence, in most cases anyway, but rather, to keep nosy relatives and friends from invading the couple’s privacy.
So, on your honeymoon have a sweet time hiding away and gazing at the moon together. If you want some mead to go along with it, a recipe can be found at www.aztriad.com.
http://www.googobits.com/articles/p2-1565-the--origins-of-the-honeymoon-ritual.html
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And an alternative view from the big wise web:
ReplyDeleteAn otherwise trustworthy reference work claims that "it was the custom in ancient times for a newly married couple to drink a potion containing honey on each of the first thirty days - a moon - of their marriage. Attila, king of the Huns, was reputed to have drunk so heavily of this potion that he died of suffocation." This is yet more fantasy. It is true that the Huns were fond of mead, but Attila died the day before his marriage, not after. He was about to be wed to the 15-year-old daughter of the Mayor of Rome. We can only imagine her relief.
Charles Panati, a popular and entertaining writer, suggests (in The Extraordinary Origins of Popular Things) that the practice of a honeymoon has its origin in Norwegian bride abduction and it refers to the period when the newlyweds would hide and wait until the bride's parents ceased looking for the groom and laid down their battle axes. He also derives the word honeymoon from the Norse hjunottsmanathr. While it is true that bride-abduction, a kind of ritualized rape, was common in many parts of the world, this has nothing to do with the English word honeymoon, even if there was such a word as hjunottsmanathr.
Many English words do have a Norse origin but this one did not appear until 1546, approximately 500 years after the Norse connection to English had been severed. Richard Huleot in his Abecedarium Anglico Latinum (1552) defined it as "a term proverbially applied to such as be new married, which will not fall out at the first, but the one loueth the other at the beginning exceedingly." Then again we find "Hony-moon, applyed to those marryed persons that love well at first, and decline in affection afterwards; it is hony now, but it will change as the Moon." (Blount, 1656). Such descriptions as these certainly suggest that the term had already been around for some time by the 1550s, but we have no evidence at all for a Norse origin. Furthermore, these glosses indicate only a period of connubial bliss which, though at first as sweet as honey, was soon to wane like the moon. There is no suggestion here that the newly-weds went away somewhere to spend some time alone. In fact, this meaning of honeymoon did not emerge until c. 1800.
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue071.html