I heard that's where the term "saved by the bell" came from. People were buried with a string in the coffin that was attached to a bell above ground. that way, if they woke up in the coffin, they could ring the bell and someone would dig them up.

Elsie got her memory back, and asked her father if he's still planning to send her to the convent school. He says no, he's learned to love Jesus, and he'll never again ask her to do something contrary to God's word.

Oh. This entire scene had much weeping, too.

I TOLD you her dad was going to learn to do what Elsie wanted. AND that she was goignt ohave to suffer. Although I did not see that this was going to happen by having her die and come back, JUST LIKE JESUS.

Oh. This entire scene had much weeping, too.

Err, the characters, not you, right?

Victorians had a near-hysterical fear of being buried alive. Between that horror and the fact there was a lot of graverobbing going on for the medical colleges, people really didn't like the idea of either sufficating underground or waking up on some slab being sliced-and-diced by some med student.

So, if Elsie becomes a zombie hunter and her father becomes a zombie, if Zombie!Dad tells her to do something contrary to God's will, can she decapitate him?

Sorry - just thinking how the books could be improved....

Hmm, checked Snopes and "saved by the bell" originated in boxing, not being buried alive.

Err, the characters, not you, right?

Yes. Mostly giggling and eye-rolling on my part.

I TOLD you her dad was going to learn to do what Elsie wanted. AND that she was goignt ohave to suffer. Although I did not see that this was going to happen by having her die and come back, JUST LIKE JESUS.

Hee. They're now moving to their own house, where he'll teach her, so that she doesn't need to have an evil governess (have I mentioned the evil governess before? The governess is evil), and they'll call all the servants in each morning for family worship.

One of the slow food (to use a probably innacurate catch-all term) things that annoys me greatly is the utter conviction that everybody is/should be/would be if they only knew a foodie.

Maybe they did and maybe they didn't, but I don't think its fair to assume that Pa Ingalls and all his wholesome neighbors came in at night and revelled in the simple goodness of the flavors from the earth and the nurturing joy of the sunshine fueling his body and making it strong and held a deep appreciation and reverence for the preparation of said food as an act of love toward the family... I'm betting that most men in history have eagerly eaten what is in front of them until they are full (or too full if they could afford that).

I'm betting most women in history, while taking pride in the ability to make good bread or specialties for holidays, would like to have everybody fed with as little work as possible in the preparation and clean up.

I know for CERTAIN that most people (i.e. the poor) have had very little variety in their diets and food had more to do with subsistence than pleasure.

The exception to this would be when a crop came in or an animal was slaughtered -- THEN they'd revel. It's certainly good for us to eat freshly and seasonally -- I'm all for it. And we could stand to not eat produce grown an ocean voyage away the bulk of the time. But we'll never revel as they did because springs first fruits don't relieve us from five months of brown bread, fatback, and the last of the apples. And in the balance I don't see this as a cultural loss.

There used to be lots of fancy contraptions that you could attach to a coffin so that, if the dead person suddenly woke up alive, they could alert people aboveground before they suffocated.