At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past

In the centuries before electric lighting, nighttime spawned a remarkably rich and vibrant culture. In this strikingly original work, A. Roger Ekirch resurrects a vivid world with its own rules and rituals, scents, sights, and sounds—a universe of torchlight travels and moonlit travails, of satanic spirits, night kings, and bandogs, of sewing circles and blanket fairs. When the sun set, the ordinary rituals and regulations of daytime underwent dramatic change, as did attitudes toward magic, sexuality, authority, and the environment. Not only was nighttime thought a separate “season,” but for the greater part of humankind darkness afforded a sanctuary from daily experience, an “alternate reign” that shunned established habits and values. Crime, fire, and witches; navigating fields by starlight; work parties to spin wool and tales; masked balls and night-cellars; midnight liaisons and bundling; the rhythms of sleep and dreams—all these and more are interwoven in this enthralling study. Panoramic in scope, At Day's Close is fashioned on an intimate scale, enriched by personal stories and twenty years of research.