Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Women usually stayed at home caring for children, preparing meals,
and making baskets. They also made wool felt and spun and wove
wool into a coarse cloth. Flax was grown and woven into a coarse
linen cloth. Spinning the strands into one continuous thread was
done on a stick, which the woman could carry about and spin at
anytime when her hands were free. The weaving was done on an
upright or warp-weighted loom. People of means draped the cloth
around their bodies and fastened it with a metal brooch inlayed
with gold, gems, and shell, which were glued on with glue that was
obtained from melting animal hooves. People drank from hollowed-
out animal horns, which they could carry from belts. They could
tie things with rawhide strips or rope braids they made. Kings
drank from animal horns decorated with gold or from cups of amber,
shale, or pure gold. Men and women wore pendants and necklaces of
colorful stones, shells, amber beads, bones, and deer teeth. They
skinned and cut animals with hand-axes and knives made of flint
dug up from pits and formed by hitting flakes off. The speared
fish with barbed bone prongs or wrapped bait around a flint, bone,
or shell fish hook. On the coast, they made bone harpoons for
deep-sea fish. The flint ax was used to shape wood and bone and
was just strong enough to fell a tree, although the process was
very slow.
The king, who was tall and strong, led his men in hunting groups
to kill deer and other wild animals in the forests and to fish in
the streams. Some men brought their hunting dogs on leashes to
follow scent trails to the animal. The men threw stones and spears
with flint points at the animals. They used wood clubs to beat
them, at the same time using wood shields to protect their bodies.
They watched the phases of the moon and learned to predict when it
would be full and give the most light for night hunting. This
began the concept of a month. Circles of stone like Stonehenge
were built with alignments to paths of the moon.
If hunting groups from two clans tried to follow the same deer,
there might be a fight between the clans or a blood feud. After
the battle, the clan would bring back its dead and wounded. A
priest officiated over a funeral for a dead man. His wife would
often also go on the funeral pyre with him.
The priest also officiated over sacrifices of humans, who were
usually offenders found guilty of transgressions. Sacrifices were
usually made in time of war or pestilence, and usually before the
winter made food scarce.
The clan ate deer that had been cooked on a spit over a fire, and
fruits and vegetables which had been gathered by the women. They
drank water from springs. In the spring, food was plentiful. There
were eggs of different colors in nests and many hare to eat. The
goddess Easter was celebrated at this time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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