meadcup

— Then it was time and season that the son of Healfdene went to the hall; the king himself would partake of the feast. Never did I hear of tribes in greater multitude, bearing themselves well about their chieftain: the glorious warriors bent there to the bench; they rejoiced in the abundance of the feast, fairly they partook of many a meadcup, they, kinsmen of the bold of heart, in the lofty hall, they Hrothgar and Hrothwulf.

— The example of so illustrious a teacher told with success upon his clergy; but his thanes appear to have been too devoted to the battlefield and the meadcup to have heeded the exhortations even of an Alfred; and he takes his place as the solitary lay-writer throughout the whole range of Anglo-Saxon literature.