Did You Know That...
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled
pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence
the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The
man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally
the children ~ last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could
actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Dont throw the baby out with the bath
water.
Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw - piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for
animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it
became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the
saying Its raining cats and dogs.
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. That posed
a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed
with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. Thats how canopy
beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying dirt poor.
The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when
wet, so they spread thresh/straw on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more
thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance
way. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with
a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate
mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to
get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite
a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine
days old.
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they
would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could bring home the bacon." They would
cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of
pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This
happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread
was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests
got the top, or upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes
knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait
and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and
small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take
the bones to a bone-house and re-use the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have
scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string
on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell... Someone
would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell. Thus, someone could be
saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.
And thats the truth...
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