Quote:Human Hibernation
At the beginning of the 19th century, France was four-fifths rural. Almost a third of these lived in hamlets of fewer than 35 people. Without an industrial revolution to transform its roads, railways and canals, travelling in ‘la France profonde’ was as exotic as a trip to the lands of Tartary. In the years after the revolution of 1789, reports came back of almost unimaginably primitive lifestyles.
The peasant’s year was divided into two seasons: five months of labour, where 99% of the work was done and seven months of winter. As money was practically unknown in rural France until the late 19th century, there was little motivation to do anything other than conserve energy. It seems in many places, whole families just took to their beds, snug under their hayloft, with a supply of dried and preserved food and their animals in the next room to keep them warm. If anyone died, the corpse was stored on the roof and buried when the weather got warmer.[...]
http://qi.com/infocloud/hibernation
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw
