God intervened in daily life, especially if worshipped. Saints such as Bede and Hilda performed miracles, especially ones of curing. Their spirits could be contacted through their relics, which rested at the altars of churches. When someone was said to have the devil in him, people took it quite literally. A real Jack Frost nipped noses and fingers and made the ground too hard to work. Little people, elves, trolls, and fairies inhabited the fears and imaginings of people. The forest was the mysterious home of spirits. People prayed to God to help them in their troubles and from the work of the devil. Since natural causes of events were unknown, people attributed events to wills like their own. Illness was thought to be caused by demons. People hung charms around their neck for cure and treatments of magic and herbs were given. Some had hallucinogenic effects, which were probably useful for pain. For instance, the remedy for "mental vacancy and folly" was a drink of "fennel, agrimony, cockle, and marche". Blood- letting by leeches and cautery were used for most maladies, which were thought to be caused by imbalance of the four bodily humors: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. These four humors reflected the four basic elements air, water, fire, and earth. Blood was hot and moist like air; phlegm was cold and moist like water; choler or yellow bile was hot and dry like fire; and melancholy or black bile was cold and dry like earth. Bede had explained that when blood predominates, it makes people joyful, glad, sociable, laughing, and talking a great deal. Phlegm renders them slow, sleepy, and forgetful. Red cholic makes them thin, though eating much, swift, bold, wrathful, and agile. Black cholic makes them serious of settled disposition, even sad. To relieve brain pressure and/or maybe to exorcise evil spirits, holes were made in skulls by a drill with a metal tip that was caused to turn back and forth by a strap wrapped around a wooden handle. A king's daughter Edith inspired a cult of holy wells, whose waters were thought to alleviate 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 creature, for I satisfy women … I grow very tall, erect in a bed. I'm hairy underneath. From time to time A beautiful girl, the brave daughter Of some fellow dares to hold me Grips my reddish skin, robs me of my head And puts me in the pantry. At once that girl With plaited hair who has confined me Remembers our meeting. Her eye moistens. What am I? An onion.
A man came walking where he knew She stood in a corner, stepped forwards; The bold fellow plucked up his own Skirt by hand, stuck something stiff Beneath her belt as she stood, Worked his will. They both wiggled. The man hurried; his trusty helper Plied a handy task, but tired At length, less strong than she, Weary of the work. Thick beneath Her belt swelled the thing good men Praise with their hearts and purses. What am I? A milk churn.
The languages of invaders had produced a hybrid language that was roughly understood throughout the country. The existence of Europe, Africa, Asia, and India were known. Jerusalem was thought to be at the center of the world. There was an annual tax of a penny on every hearth, Peter's pence, to be collected and sent to the pope in Rome. Ecclesiastical benefices were to pay church- scot, a payment in lieu of first fruits of the land, to the pope.
- The Law -
The king and witan deliberated on the making of new laws, both secular and spiritual, at the regularly held witanagemot. There was a standard legal requirement of holding every man accountable, though expressed in different ways, such as the following three:
Every freeman who does not hold land must find a lord to answer for him. The act of homage was symbolized by holding his hands together between those of his lord. Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for the men of his household. [This included female lords.] (King Athelstan)