History or Myth

You decide!

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 underneath. 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 entrance way. 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 overnight 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 ale or whiskey. 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 re opening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were  found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realised they had been  burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse,  thread 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…Now, whoever said History was boring ! !  !