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Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers 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 to see if they would wake up. Hence, the custom of holding a "wake".
England is old and small, and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So, they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell. Thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."
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