Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/63

Rh freely played; played often far into the night, when the dim hall was lit only by rushes smeared in fat, for high stakes involving loss of land and even of personal liberty.

Our forefathers loved practical jokes, many of which savour of barbaric cruelty. To tie thorns or prickles under the tail of a horse and set thereon a timid rider afforded them untold mirth, as did also the discomforting process of binding a man and chopping off half his long hair and beard, the pride and joy of his position of a freeman as opposed to that of a slave. The life of a wayfarer must have assumed new terrors by the knowledge that at any moment a band of facetious merrymakers might pounce on him, strip him of his clothes, dip him in hot pitch, and roll him in feathers!

The clothes of these days were very simple. Long white linen tunics with loose sleeves, girdled in at the waist, were worn by all alike, from slave to chief. Over this men and women wore a short cloak, while, in addition to and below these garments, the women wore a long gown reaching to the feet. No one went barefoot in Anglo-Saxon days; all wore shoes and stockings, though the latter more resembled the