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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 3315744" data-attributes="member: 1645">I enjoyed this bit about escaping from the rich merchant's house in the middle of the night: If he left after dark, he would scarcely run as trippingly as we have shown Gnorts the Barbarian doing. People who have experienced blackouts will tell you that a nighted city without the modern invention of lights is black. With walls shutting off most of the sky — especially along narrow medieval streets — it is far gloomier that any open field. You'd grope your way, unless you had a torch or lantern (and then you'd better have an armed guard). Furthermore, those lanes were open sewers; in many places, stepping stones went down the middle because of that. Despite sanitary measures, metropolitan streets as late as about 1900 were often uncrossable simply because of horse droppings. Graveyards stank too: one reason why incense was used in church services.</blockquote>