Things I've Learned

I've been meaning to post something on this for a while, before I forgot. Having now visited various places around the UK, each place seems to have its own little bit of folk wisdom to add to my knowledge banks. That being said, none of this has been verified, but it does have the capability of making you stop and think. These were mostly collected during our visits to Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick Castle, but may have come from other places as well. So, without further ado, the things that I've learned...

In the 16th and 17th century, children frequently slept in a trundle bed which could roll under the parents bed. The bed didn't have slats or spring mattresses as we do today, but instead were a bedframe with a lattice of ropes forming the support. Over time, the ropes would loosen, and need to be periodically tightened. Thus, the saying, "good night, sleep tight".

Beds in the 16th and 17th centuries were much shorter than beds are today. Although some people have attributed this to people growing taller in the intervening centuries, persons were roughly the same height then as they are today. However, people used to sleep in a reclining position - if you slept laying down, people might think you were dead!

There was so much soot and nastiness in the air during these times, that laws were passed to prohibit people from burning fires after a certain time at night - in order to keep them from adding to the mess. This was a "couvre feu" - French for cover fire - from which we derive our word "curfew".

The English bowman was one of the most feared warriors of his time, and the English bowman was largely responsible for the great victory of Henry IV on St. Crispin's Day. The French hated the bowmen so much that one French king stated that he would cut off the shooting fingers of any bowman that was captured - the shooting fingers being the index and middle fingers of the hand. As a taunt, the English bowmen would hold up these fingers to show the French that they still had their shooting fingers. To get the idea, take your hand, make a "V" with your shooting fingers (palm towards you) and then hold your hand out to your closest neighbor to see if they become offended. (Okay, just kidding!)

The problem with being a bowman was that you had to be ready for battle at any point in time. If you left your string on your bow, the string would get wet and stretch, making it useless. To keep this from happening, the bowmen would carry their bowstrings in a pouch, and string their bows shortly before battle. In order to check the tension on the bow, they would measure the distance between the bow and the string (once attached) using their hand and thumb. Once the tension was checked, they would turn to their neighbor showing their hand and extended thumb (fingers curled into the palm), indicating that they were "okay".

Because there were so many bowmen, some of the surnames around today derive from the work done to prepare the bows and arrows - Fletcher and Stringer or Stringfellow, to name a few.

So there you go, a few more folk legends to remember.