eviate eye conditions. Warmth and rest were also
used for illness. Agrimony boiled in milk was thought to relieve
impotence in men.

It was known that the liver casted out impurities in the blood.
The stages of fetal growth were known. The soul was not thought to
enter a fetus until after the third month, so presumably abortions
within three months were allowable.

The days of the week were Sun day, Moon day, Tiw's day (Viking god
of war), Woden's day (Viking god of victory, master magician,
calmer of storms, and raiser of the dead), Thor's day (Viking god
of thunder), Frig's day (Viking goddess of fertility and growing
things), and Saturn's day (Roman god). Special days of the year
were celebrated: Christmas, the birthday of Jesus Christ; the
twelve days of Yuletide (a Viking tradition) when candles were lit
and houses decorated with evergreen and there were festivities
around the burning of the biggest log available; Plough Monday for
resumption of work after Yuletide; February 14th with a feast
celebrating Saint Valentinus, a Roman bishop martyr who had
married young lovers in secret when marriage was forbidden to
encourage men to fight in war; New Year's Day on March 25th when
seed was sown and people banged on drums and blew horns to banish
spirits who destroy crops with disease; Easter, the day of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ; Whitsunday, celebrating the descent
of the Holy Spirit on the apostles of Jesus and named for the
white worn by baptismal candidates; May Day when flowers and
greenery was gathered from the woods to decorate houses and
churches, Morris dancers leapt through their villages with bells,
hobby horses, and waving scarves, and people danced around a May
pole holding colorful ribbons tied at the top so they became
entwined around the pole; Lammas on August 1st, when the first
bread baked from the wheat harvest was consecrated; Harvest Home
when the last harvest load was brought home while an effigy of a
goddess was carried with reapers singing and piping behind, and
October 31st, the eve of the Christian designated All Hallow Day,
which then became known as All Hallow Even, or Halloween. People
dressed as demons, hobgoblins, and witches to keep spirits away
from possessing them. Trick or treating began with Christian
beggars asking for "soul cake" biscuits in return for praying for
dead relatives. Ticktacktoe and backgammon were played. There were
riddles such as:

I am a strange crea