Lost Wisdom is a celebration of the time-honored lore on which people once relied. It draws on folklore, tradition, and superstition and is packed with amusing anecdotes and historical extracts that illuminate the beliefs and knowledge of our ancestors. It also brings to life the wisdom and practical skills that helped generation after generation, becoming lost only with the advent of mechanization and the technological age. This beautiful book will immerse readers in the pleasures of the past as they explore information that has been passed around the campfire and schoolroom and handed down from parent to child. Among the skills included are weather forecasting, understanding longitude and latitude, raft making, telling time without a clock, celebrating spring, wart charming, and curing drunkenness.