h Dictionary." "A bitter-suete
[apple]--Amari-mellum."

(_c_) The "crab," roasted before the fire and put into ale, was a very
favorite indulgence, especially at Christmas, in days gone by, and is
referred to in the song of winter in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2):

"When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Then nightly sings the staring owl."

The beverage thus formed was called "Lambs-wool," and generally
consisted of ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs, or apples. It
formed the ingredient of the wassail-bowl;[462] and also of the gossip's
bowl[463] alluded to in "Midsummer-Night's Dream" (ii. 1), where Puck
says:

"And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale."

[462] See chapter xi., Customs connected with the Calendar.

[463] See chapter on Customs connected with Birth and Baptism.

In Peele's "Old Wives' Tale," it is said:

"Lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb's wool."[464]

[464] Edited by Dyce, 1861, p. 446. Many fanciful derivations
for this word have been thought of, but it was no doubt named
from its smoothness and softness, resembling the wool of lambs.

And in Herrick's "Poems:"

"Now crowne the bowle
With gentle lamb's wooll,
Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger."

(_d_) The "codling," spoken of by Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" (i.
5)--"Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a
squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis almost an
apple"--is not the variety now so called, but was the popular term for an
immature apple, such as would require cooking to be eaten, being derived
from "coddle," to stew or boil lightly--hence it denoted a boiling apple,
an apple for coddling or boiling.[465] Mr. Gifford[466] says that
codling was used by our old writers for that early state of vegetation
when the fruit, after shaking off the blossom, began to assume a
globular and determinate form.

[465] Dr. Prior's "Popular Names of British Plants," 1870, p. 50.

[466] Note on Jonson's Works, vol. iv. p. 24.

(_e_) The "leather-coat" was the apple generally known as "the golden
russeting."[467] Davy, in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3), says: "There is a dish
of leather-coats for you."

[467] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 242.

(_f_) The "pippin" was formerly a common term for an apple, to