[TheForge] Good ole days ?

Sun Feb 17 08:42:01 2002

Yeah but surely the last one cant be true??? burying 4% of "dead" people
alive???? Bizzare if it is.

----- Original Message -----
From: "H and P Foster" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 11:26 PM
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Good ole days ?

> Thanks for that Dave, very interesting to see where some of these old
> sayings came from.
>
> Harry Foster
> Rusty Dog Forge
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of lama
> Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2002 1:25 AM
> To: TheForge
> Subject: [TheForge] Good ole days ?
>
>
> (I didn't write this so I don't know how accurate it is, but it sure
> is interesting)
>
> History
>
> Next time you are washing your hands and complain because the
> water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how
> things used to be Here are some facts about the 1500s:
>
> 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
> odor.  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, "Don't 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 rats, and 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 "It's raining cats and
> dogs."
>
> There was nothing to  stop things from falling into the house.  This 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.  That's 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 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 entranceway -- Hence, a "thresh hold."
>
> 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 a 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.  Most people did not have pewter
> plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out
like
> a bowl.  Often trenchers were made from stale pays and bread
> which was so old and hard that they could use them for quite
> some time.  Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold
> got
> into the wood and old bread.  After eating off wormy moldy trenchers, one
> would get "trench mouth."
>
> 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 whiskey. 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 they started running out of places
> to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the
> bones to a "bone-house" and reuse 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 that's the truth... (and whoever said that History was boring?!)
>
>
>
> Dave Mudge [email protected]
> http://MagicHammer.IronWorkers.com
> http://MagicHammer.FreeServers.com
> A duck's quack doesn't echo.
> No one knows why.
>
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