originally posted by: Honeykiss1974
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."
A few days!!! I can only imagine how the house smelled, with folks that take a yearly bath AND a dead person on the KITCHEN table...WTF!
ETA: HC someone shuda told home girl about that intensified PINK up in here, up in here.
