Long, uneventful histories, told slowly and without incident, for falling asleep to. Nothing is revealed, nobody turns out to have been someone else, and there is no reason at all to stay awake for the end.
How a parish wrote down its baptisms, marriages and burials, and where the books were kept and in the end deposited, read slowly from the National Archives and the Victoria County History. Read by a synthetic voice.
How the tithe was turned from grain into money, and the maps and books drawn up to work out who owed what, read slowly from the National Archives and the National Library of Wales. Read by a synthetic voice.
A small room near the gate, a ruled board and a handful of counters, and a long strip of parchment covered in small abbreviated Latin. Obedientiaries, tally sticks, and the annual hearing at which a man read aloud the price of eggs.
