[Sca-cooks] Giant butt

[Laura C. Minnick]

I have to forward this in its' entirity- it is intereting, and the subject
line was hysterical!

'Lainie

>Sender: Chaucer Discussion Group <CHAUCER at LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
>From: "Brian S. Lee" <brianlee at XSINET.CO.ZA>
>Subject: Giant butt
>To: CHAUCER at LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
>
> This is the somewhat ambiguous heading to an article I saw quoted from the
>London 'Daily Telegraph' -- in full the heading is "Giant butt to spark
>poetry in Motion".  It begins:
>
>"In accordance with a 300-year-old tradition, Britain's Poet Laureate,
>Andrew Motion, has been presented with a giant butt -- 500 litres --of
>Spanish sherry each year to help summon the muse."
>
>This reminded me of Chaucer's annual tun of wine, and made me wonder just
>how much it contained.  The OED obliges with the information that a "tun"
>(sv., 2.) was "a cask of definite capacity ... usually equivalent to two
>pipes or four hogsheads, containing 252 old wine-gallons."  Early on in my
>schooldays, getting on for a long time ago, weights and measures were
>printed on the back of exercise books, from which I remember learning that
>there were 8 pints to a gallon, eight gallons to a bushel, and 8 bushels to
>a hogshead.  This at long last useful instruction works out to just four
>gallons more than what the OED suggests.  If Chaucer attempted to drink it
>all himself, it's not surprising he didn't finish the CT and outlived the
>award by only a couple of years.
>
>To quote further: "'In moderation, no doubt, it is inspirational," said the
>poet.  [He has written a poem entitled "A Glass of Wine"] 'But I wonder if
>this is a delightful conspiracy to silence me once and for all.'
>
>For practicality's sake, the _bota_ or butt, will be broken down into 720
>bottles ...Motion ... will have to drink two bottles every day to do justice
>to his yearly quota."  Yet that's something less than Chaucer got.
>
>The article goes on:  ' James I started the tradition in 1670 [sic!] to aid
>the royal household poet's search for inspiration.  Motion's predecessor,
>Ted Hughes, dubbed his sherry "Laureate's Choice".  ... 'Ted gave me a
>bottle some years ago.  Little did I know ...'  ... In 1984, Hughes took
>stock of his first butt of sherry, given by Spain 'to rescue a secular
>tradition and to revitalise commercial links and friendship between Spain
>and Britain'."   Or to avenge the Armada?
>
>If then Chaucer had an even bigger butt than Motion, did the tradition
>continue past laureate Skelton to the first "official" laureate, Ben Jonson,
>who was more often than not the worse for wear, no doubt as a result, and
>when did it fall into desuetude, as the Spaniards' wish to rescue the
>tradition suggest it did?
>
>Brian
>
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