Ulph’s horn is considered of somewhat later date, and is of ivory.
Ulph’s Horn.
Of this horn Dugdale[13] says: “About this time also, Ulphe, the son of Thorald, who ruled in the west of Deira,[14] by reason of the difference which was like to rise between his sons, about the sharing of his lands and lordships after his death, resolved to make them all alike; and thereupon, coming to York, with that horn wherewith he was used to drink, filled it with wine, and before the altar of God, and Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, kneeling devoutly, drank the wine, and by that ceremony enfeoffed this church with all his lands and revenues. The figure of which horn, in memory thereof, is cut in stone upon several parts of the choir, but the horn itself, when the Reformation in King Edward the VIth’s time began, and swept away many costly ornaments belonging to this church, was sold to a goldsmith, who took away from it those tippings of gold wherewith it was adorned, and the gold chain affixed thereto; since which, the horn itself, being cut in ivory in an eight square form, came to the hands of Thomas, late Lord Fairfax.”
He, dying in 1671, it came into the possession of his next relation, Henry, Lord Fairfax, who restored its ornaments in silver-gilt, and restored it to the cathedral authorities. It bears the following inscription:—
“Cornv hoc, Vlphvs in occidentali parte
Deiræ princeps, vna cum omnibvs terris
et redditibvs suis olim donavit.
Amissvm vel abreptvm.
Henricvs dom. Fairfax demvm restitvit.
Dec. et capit. de novo ornavit.
A.D. MDC. LXXV.”
Most of us know Longfellow’s poem of King Witlaf’s drinking horn, a story which may be found in Ingulphus, who says that Witlaf, King of Mercia, who lived in the reign of Egbert, gave to the Abbey of Croyland the horn used at his own table, for the elder monks of the house to drink out of it on festivals and saints’ days, and that when they gave thanks, they might remember the soul of Witlaf the donor. That they had some horn of the kind is probable, for the same chronicler says that when the monastery was almost destroyed by fire, this horn was saved.
Besides the liquors above mentioned, the Anglo-Saxons had others, as we see in a passage of Henry of Huntingdon (lib. vi.), which is probably an invention, the same story being told by Florence of Worcester, of Caradoc, the son of Griffith, A.D. 1065. However, he says that in 1063, in the king’s palace at Winchester, Tosti seized his brother Harold by the hair, in the royal presence, and while he was serving the king with wine; for it had been a source of envy and hatred that the king showed a higher regard for Harold, though Tosti was the elder brother. Wherefore, in a sudden paroxysm of passion, he could not refrain from this attack on his brother.
Tosti departed from the king and his brother in great anger, and went to Hereford, where Harold had purveyed large supplies for the royal use. There he butchered all his brother’s servants, and inclosed a head and an arm in each of the vessels containing wine, mead, ale, pigment,[15] morat,[16] and cider, sending a message to the king that when he came to his farm he would find plenty of salt meat, and that he would bring more with him. For this horrible crime the king commanded him to be banished and outlawed.