During some down time over the weekend I was wondering about the origins of the song When Johnny Comes Marching Home, and learned the tune was lifted from an Irish folksong called Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye (same link, just scroll down a bit), first published around the same time as WJCMH (after the Civil War), but believed to have been composed around 1800. It told the story of a fellow who knocked a girl up, decided responsibility wasn’t for him and ran off with the East India service to fight in Ceylon, and came back limbless. From there, it was just a hop or two to a canting song called The Night Before Larry Was Stretched (there’s an Elvis Costello cover, and I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a Nick Cave one).
What did I learn? When they locked you up and sentenced you to hang, the night before your execution they put your coffin in your cell with you! You know, to assist you in your… contemplation. And to serve as a card table for your visiting friends, of course.
You really have to wonder at how completely crazy people used to be… Following a TJIC link I learned that people used to bury virgins in foundations of bridges in order to strengthen them (the bridges, that is).