When our ancestors realized that they were burying a great deal of people before their time had actually come, they came up with a solution. They tied a string onto the "dead" person's hand, buried them, and tied the other end of the string to a bell and then tied it to a nearby tree branch. If the person revived enough to ring the bel, their survivors would rush out and dig them up. Hence..."saved by the bell." (Circa 1500s)
One part lazy, two parts eerie.
Did you look this up b/c Woodstocks theme round this week for trivia is Saved by the Bell?
ReplyDeleteHa what a coinkidink! (Had to look up spelling for that one.) I actually came across it trying to come up with something cool for Sir Francis Bacon to say. You don't want to know how long that took me, looking up slang from the 16th century...
ReplyDeleteBut, I hope its a trivia question!