Mead ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown. The English "mead" – "fermented honey drink" – derives from the Old English "meodu" or "medu", and Proto-Germanic, *"meduz" (source also of Old Norse mjöðr, Danish mjød, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch mede, Old High German metu, German Met "mead"). "Madh", and the related terms "mad" (मद, مد) and "madira" (मदिरा, مدِرا), also mean alcohol. These words are all derived from the
The Third Ingredient calf. The girl was a feather curler and, during the meal, she explained her work and showed him the peculiar kind of dull blade which was used in it. A few days later he rapped at her door to ask her to a more substantial dinner, but he found that she had gone and left no address. It is possible that O. Henry arrived at his final composition independently of the Stone Soup tradition. Unlike many other examples, it does not involve an element of trickery. Instead, the emphasis is on companionship: it may be argued that the "third ingredient"