Commercially reared broiler chickens are commonly supplied with drinking water through lines of nipple drinkers that are positioned above the birds' heads to avoid water leaking and spoiling the litter underfoot. This means that the birds have to peck upwards to obtain water, an action that is very different from the ‘scoop’ action of natural drinking seen when birds drink from troughs or puddles. In this study we investigate the welfare implications of this unnatural drinking behaviour imposed by nipple drinkers. We show 1) that chickens have no apparent aversion to the taste of tap water, 2) that they prefer bell drinkers and troughs over nipple drinkers, 3) that the stereotyped ‘scoop’ action is seen even when birds are drinking from bowls of different heights, 4) that chickens have a strong preference for drinking from nipples that are lower rather than higher and, 5) that when offered a choice between bowls and nipples of the same height, the chickens are indifferent to the method of water presentation. We conclude that the height at which water is presented to chickens is more important to them than whether they can drink with the natural ‘scoop’ action. While this might suggest that chicken welfare could be improved by lowering the drinker lines, wet litter causes welfare issues of its own through its effect on hock burn and pododermatitis. We suggest that drinker systems should be designed so that both aspects of welfare (birds able to drink in their preferred way and clean litter) are possible.

Genetics is key to the improvement of welfare in broiler chickens at both juvenile and adult (breeder) stages but progress is hampered currently by the seemingly conflicting demands of welfare, commercial production, food security and calls for increasing intensification to curb climate change. Animal welfare is therefore most likely to be improved on a commercial scale by future breeding programmes that incorporate multiple goals of different stakeholders as far as possible and give higher priority to animal welfare. These include: i) broilers with high welfare traits; ii) broiler breeders that do not need feed restriction; iii) birds that can be grown in an economically profitable way; iv) birds with low disease levels without the need for routine medication; v) chicken meat that is healthy and good for humans to eat; and (vi) broilers and breeders that thrive in systems that are environmentally sustainable. Progress towards achieving these goals is hampered currently by the assumptions that high juvenile growth rate is incompatible with good welfare and that feed restriction in adults is inevitable with fast-growing juveniles. We challenge these assumptions at both genetic and whole-animal level and argue that the conflict between good welfare and productivity can be reduced by making use of all available genetic variation from existing breeds and other sources and selecting birds in the range of environments they will encounter in commercial production.

These six short papers should be taken as notes supplementary to my book The Monks of Athos; after each title I give the reference to the page of the book, except for the last paper, Learning on Mount Athos, as this stands rather apart. The material for it is drawn almost entirely from the published catalogues of the Athos libraries.

For two reasons I feel justified in sending this small paper to the volume of the British School Annual to be dedicated to my friend Professor A. J. B. Wace. From his earliest visits to Greece, from the days before the First World War when he and I travelled together in the Greek Islands, Professor Wace, together with his learning as an archaeologist, has always shown the most sympathetic interest in the later and contemporary life of the Greek people. This is one reason; the other is that I find here an opportunity to bring before a number of readers, most of whom have travelled in Greece, a mass of freshly published material bearing very closely on the character and ways of thought of the Greeks as they are now and, I believe, have been even from the days of classical antiquity.

The famous Varangian corps of mercenary soldiers in the service of the emperors of Byzantium is well known in its earlier days to have been recruited from the Scandinavian north. Forging their way from their own inhospitable lands the Northmen, first of all from Sweden, reached the Volga and the lands even to. the south of the Caspian; later by the ‘East Way’, called also the ‘Varangian Way’, they came down through Russia by way of the Dnieper and the Black Sea to Constantinople, first as pirates, then as traders, and finally as the most trusted guards of the imperial person. Later again they ventured on the all-sea route, the ‘West Way’, and also opened a path across Europe, either over the Alps or by way of Provence, and so through Italy: this was the ‘Southern Way’, otherwise called the ‘Way by Rome’ But in the eleventh century, in the first half of which Harald Hardrada, the most famous of all the Varangians, was in the imperial service, there was a certain change; recruits began to come increasingly from England.

The first actual mention of the English name seems to be in a bull issued by the Emperor Alexios in 1088 to Christodoulos, the Abbot of the Monastery on Patmos.

In Chapter II of his Folklore Studies, ancient and modern, Sir William Halliday gave a translation of a Byzantine carol in honour of St. Basil the Great, and with this a full discussion of the legend celebrated in the carol. This is a story of a contact between the emperor Julian the Apostate in his last campaign against Persia and St. Basil, and how Julian's death was brought about by the agency of St. Mercurius, a soldier who was martyred in the Decian persecutions. The legend is recorded in the life of St. Basil attributed to St. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, and in this life it appears we may see the start of the whole story. The supposed author was a contemporary of St. Basil, but the document is rejected as apocryphal, and appears to be of the eighth or ninth century, a date which allows plenty of time for the accumulation of legend about a name so well known in Asia Minor as that of the great bishop of Caesarea. Sir William Halliday has translated the relevant passages: for convenience I here give a very brief summary of the parts of the story which most closely touch the carol.

The emperor Julian on his way to his campaign in Persia met Basil somewhere in the neighbourhood of Caesarea. Basil offered the emperor three loaves; angry at the smallness of the gift, the emperor sent him some hay in return; further angered by the fact that this gift gave the saint the right of pasturage on a certain meadow, he threatened on his return to destroy the city. Basil gathered his flock together, and they went to pray in the church of the Virgin on ‘Mount Didymus.’ The Virgin appeared, and called for the warrior Mercurius, who should go to Persia and slay Julian. Basil then went to the shrine of St. Mercurius, and found that the body was not there. This he announced to the people, and in seven days came the news of the death of Julian. Such very briefly is the legend as recorded in the Amphilochian life.