Life In Old England

[SueM]

Life In Old England

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. 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,
"Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water".

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood
underne ath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all
the 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 .
"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 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
(straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on,
they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would
all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the
entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold".

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

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 over night and then start over the next day.
Sometimes 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> 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 the "upper crust".

Lead cups were used to drink al e or whisky. The combination
would sometimes knock the imbibers 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 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 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".

[MarineFish]

wow sue thats great i have learned all i need for one day now....

[dolphinkid]

lol thats awsome sue! thanks for sharin!!

[Scuba Kid]

that';s really cool. except the stuff about bathing, which is very disgusting. I knew they didnt bath often, but i didnt know it was annually. lol