Ebook: Lady With a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age

"Lady with a Mead Cup" is a broad-ranging, innovative and strikingly original study of the early medieval barbarian cup-offering ritual and its social, institutional and religious significance. Medievalists are familiar with the image of a queen offering a drink to a king or chieftain and to his retainers, the Wealhtheow scene in "Beowulf" being perhaps the most famous instance. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology and philology, as well as medieval history, Professor Enright has produced the first work in English on the warband and on the significance of barbarian drinking rituals.