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The spoon, it is true, goes back to hoary antiquity, but in England, even in the Middle Ages, spoons were used chiefly for ecclesiastical purposes. In Harrison's Elizabethan England we read that the times had changed, for instead of "treen platters" there were pewter plates, and tin or silver spoons instead of wood. Cutlery: Knives, Forks, and Spoons.
As for servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet and rased their hardened hides. The third thing they tell of is the exchange of vessel, as of treen platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin. This was in the time of general idleness.
In conscience, Geordie, I think as that thou hast been mine ain auld fiduciary, and wert my goldsmith when I might say with the Ethnic poet Non mea renidet in domo lacunar for, faith, they had pillaged my mither's auld house sae, that beechen bickers, and treen trenchers, and latten platters, were whiles the best at our board, and glad we were of something to put on them, without quarrelling with the metal of the dishes.
It was in the form of a little sortie from the trench to a stumpy willow in "No-Man's-Land," a willow that bore a striking resemblance to some giant cacti and was called by us the "Cactus Treen." From this point it was possible to bomb the German trench, and a little excursion of this sort generally satiated the visitor's curiosity. Incidentally, it kept the Hun from coming out and bombing us.
Now as to the names which the menfolk of the Face bore, and they an ancient kindred, a kindred of chieftains, it has been said that in times past their image of the God of the Earth had over his treen face a mask of beaten gold fashioned to the shape of the image; and that when the Alderman of the Folk died, he to wit who served the God and bore on his arm the gold-ring between the people and the altar, this visor or face of God was laid over the face of him who had been in a manner his priest, and therewith he was borne to mound; and the new Alderman and priest had it in charge to fashion a new visor for the God; and whereas for long this great kindred had been chieftains of the people, they had been, and were all so named, that the word Face was ever a part of their names.
Then said our Lord to Moses: Say thou to Aaron: Take this rod and stretch thine hand upon all the waters of Egypt, upon the floods, rivers, ponds, and upon all the lakes where any water is, in that they turn to blood, that it may be a vengeance in all the land of Egypt, as well in treen vessels as in vessels of earth and stone.
J. Ward, writing in 1828 of the "Potter's Art," spoke thus of the humble boards of his youth: "And there the trencher commonly was seen With its attendant ample platter treen." Until almost our own time trenchers were made in Vermont of the white, clean, hard wood of the poplar-tree, and were sold and used in country homes. Old wooden trenchers may be seen in Deerfield Memorial Hall.
Our school textbooks tell us that action and reaction are equal and opposite; and this familiar phrase gives meaning to the saw, Pelmavè dakâl dakè, 'She is equal, the thing struck to the hammer, meaning that woman's equality to man is no more effective than the reaction of the leather on the mallet. Thleen delkint treen lalfe zevleen, ''Twixt fogs and clouds she dreams of stars."
But the other woman had run into the house as soon as Birdalone spoke, and came back again with a treen bowl full of milk and a little loaf, not white but brown; and there blundered about her legs as she came a little lad of some three winters old, naked and brown, who was shy of the gleaming new-comer, and hid him behind the woman one while, and the other while came forth to see the new thing.
"The east is bright with morning light, And darkness it is fled, And the merry horn wakes up the morn To leave his idle bed. "Behold the skies with golden dyes Are glowing all around, The grass is green, and so are the treen, All laughing at the sound." The sisters sang well, and Agnes enjoyed the music.
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