the sun was rising. a women got up from a straw mat om the floor of her simple two-room family cottage. her husband and their four children were still asleep on the mat. there were five other children. the couple gave two of them to a family with too few workers ; the other three died long ago. the woman pushed aside the family goats. when she started the fire for cooking, the man and the children got up. while the daughter helped with the housework, the sons went outside to work in the fields with their father. they could see a castle, not far away. the family lived under the protection of the master of the castle. they were not his slaves, but they paid him taxes. there was no schooling, so they could not read or write or get jobs in cities. during the long workday, they took break only for meals. occasionally,they went to the village center, where they laughed and talked and played games. at night people of the community got together around big fires; they told stories about the past. most families used to live this way in england over 800 years ago.