wow! I just heard this yesterday and the day before when Mayhem and I were out in Stratford-Upon-Avon and learning about how life was back in William Shakespeare's lifetime.

Another one is that one of the remedies for a sore throught was to tie a frog to a string and put it in their mouth, hence, the saying of having a frog in your throught.

"Ring-around-the-rosey" the childhood nursery ryhme was about the bubonic plague.

Rule of thumb comes from the law that men couldn't beat their wives with a stick with a bigger circumference than their thumb.

Women were in charge of keeping the hearth fires banked at night, and stoked up during the day. If the fires were let to burn out, the husband had the right to beat his wife for that and would only do it during the day so that it didn't disturb the neighbors at night. Hence the saying of "keep the home fires burning"

the bones that were disinterred to make room for the newly deceased were piled up and burnt, and this was usually a large fire, a bone fire, or a bonfire.

Since bathing more than once a year was thought bad for you, as well as washing your hands was thought bad for you, people wore gloves for everything, and white gloves were used for eating or special occasions. Lamb skin was usually the softest and easiest to get white gloves out of. Another name for a lamb is kid. The high class ladies would then have their kid gloves on.

John Shakespeare, William's father, was a glove maker and a very well to do glove maker, and in his day was the equivalent of a millionaire. This was passed down to Willy and he also was a well to do man.

And that is all that i can remember from playing tourist. Crazy how things and sayings carry on through time.