Pagan Village News

Ever wonder where the saying, “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” came from. This is really interesting. In colonial days the children generally slept three to four in a bed. They lay crosswise. The bed, which had a straw mattress, had a crank at the top end with rope attached. The rope then criss crossed down to the bottom of the bed where it was tied off. At night, the rope was cranked tight to hold the mattress firm and naturally by morning it would be sagging again. Since straw was a breeding ground for all sorts of pests, many people had bed bugs. Thus, “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite”.

Do you know what the leading cause of death was among women in Colonial days? Burns. There was little or no incidence of burning to death or dying of infection from burns until the dresses they wore became wider and wider. Many women whose dresses caught fire if they were lucky not to die due to the burns, eventually died from infection from these burns.

Where did the saying “bless you” come from each time someone sneezed? Well, word has it that when you sneezed, your spirit would jump out of your body and someone had to immediately say “bless you” before the devil jumped in.

“Birds do it, bees do it” was a saying originated by the Audubon society in regards to pollination.

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782