*The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh on the floor to help their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until it would all start slipping outside when you opened the door. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway, a thresh hold."
 

Spread thresh?? I hate to keep on (not really, I enjoy it), but there's no such noun as 'thresh', it's a verb.

*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."
 

How exactly would a dog get into the roof?
More likely - Jonathan Swift wrote a poem, “City Shower” (1710), that described floods that occurred after heavy rains. The floods left dead animals in the streets, and may have led locals to describe the weather as “raining cats and dogs.” 

 
*There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This was a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. A bed with big posts and a sheet over the top afforded some protection.
That's how canopy beds came into existence.

I think houses in the 1500's had roofs.

The word "Blithering", as in, "You Blithering Idiot", was created in the 1865-1870 timeframe in England by combining "Blither" with the -ing suffix.  Blither was a variant of the word, "Blether", which began in the 1520's in Northern England and Scotland.

So, apparently, they had a word for me in the 1500's, too.

I used to hear these stories from my great-great-great-great-great-great-great granduncle. That's why I refused to live then!

But really, for some it's still that way. Sadly, parts of the world have never left the dark ages.

jamesg1213

craigb




*England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and take the bones to a "bone house" and reuse the grave.

Oh yes, and 600 years later, we now have to bury people standing up.

I plan on being fast-frozen while still alive, so they can thaw me out in a 1000 yrs.
 
They're knocking on my door right now so if you don't hear from me in a while...