Just spotted this nugget in my local CAMRA newsletter
BAD NEWS OR GOOD NEWS?
There is an old pub in Marble Arch, London,
which used to have a gallows adjacent to it. Prisoners
were taken to the gallows (after a fair trial of course)
to be hung. The horse-drawn dray, carting the prisoner,
was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop
the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would
like ''ONE LAST DRINK''. If he said YES, it was referred to
as ONE FOR THE ROAD. If he declined, that prisoner
was ON THE WAGON. So there you go.
http://www.camra.org.uk/home.aspx ...there’s one near you.
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So now you know
(15 posts) (7 voices)
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Posted 6 years ago #
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Anonymous
offlineUnregisteredYes! A place for my favourite bit of pedantry! It's 'hanged', not 'hung' in this context.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I think this is made up. The origin of 'on the wagon' refers to 'on the water-wagon', i.e. would rather drink water from the water-cart (wagon) than alcohol...
The folk tale given by CAMRA fails to account for 'falling off the wagon'.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Marble Arch is the location of Tyburn, the infamous hanging out spot for all the best highwaymen.
Another piece of useless information is the attempt of monasteries to curb the brothers' drinking habits by introducing a peg system. 8 monks would share a pottle sized tankard (2 quarts) with pegs down the side measuring a half pint each. If they drank past the peg the forfeit was to drink down to the next one thus "taken down a peg".
Luckily the monks brewed a lot of ale so there was never a shortage for the unfortunates who were forced to drink more than their share.Posted 6 years ago # -
Your explanation of falling off the wagon is what I thought it was but you're wrong about pegs. I know quite a lot about medieval drinking. Here's another one:
Parishes would have a number of "Ales" throughout the year where the villagers would have to donate the malt for the brew and food for the feast. Typically these were Church or Help Ales and Bride Ales, where the proceeds would go to the happy couple. The origin of the word bridal.Posted 6 years ago # -
OED agrees that Bride + Ale = Bridal.
There is some support for something like your peg story, but more along the lines of people drinking from someone else's container, taking them down a peg (and thus depriving them of their ration of ale). This, I think you'll agree, makes more sense, but I couldn't find any decent website willing to say that was the definitive answer, rather than pegs representing status (for example where one got to hang ones cloak, the height to which flags were raised, or even the amount of ale you were allowed to drink).
Posted 6 years ago # -
I think you're concentrating on the detail more than the concept Mr 13 and all knowledge is not to be found on the net. Here's something else which might be of interest: In Medieval England the word beer was used to denote "hopped ale", something which was popular over on the continent. The idea of using hops didn't really start catching on here till the 15th century and even then was resisted. Shrewsbury banned the use of hops in 1512 and Henry VIII preferred ale to beer. Beer won out eventually as ale could be very good but too often it was bloody awful. Here's a little rhyme from about 1540:
Ich am a Cornishman, ale I can brew
It will make one cacke, also to spew
It is thick and smokey and also it is thin (thin means weak here)
It is like wash as pigs had wrestled there inPosted 6 years ago #
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