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Originally Posted by smoore
That was my big problem too.
Hang onto your clothing until you find other people and stash everything together or if you're surrounded by natives then strip quick and hide the knife in the piles of filth around the town. Get native garb and return to your trusty blade.
A pair of Redwing boots would go far in 1008 if you had to flee on foot.
edit: of course, at 6'0", 190lbs I'd stick out like a sore thumb no matter what.
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I think that whole "get native garb" might not be that simple. Once you strip, even if you start whistling "It's raining men", it's going to be a problem.
I'm a big fan of Occam's razor but I think once you're nude the logic of Occam switches to the the locals. Simplest solution for them is to do away with you and go back to their lives.
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Originally Posted by levite
Learning a classical language before you went time-travelling would probably help. I have, because I am endlessly geeky, often fantasized about what would happen should I somehow end up 1000 years ago. It made me feel better once I mastered Hebrew and learned Latin, Middle English, Saxon, and picked up a little Greek and a little Old French. If I ended up back there, I could always pass myself off as a scholar. I also learned how to fight with a broadsword-- it's not the commonest hobby, I know, but it is fun-- and that might help, too. Plus, I can shoot (archery), though I'm not the greatest.
Will's ideas are actually not bad at all. People back then actually did not go around constantly burning everyone who spouted weird stuff, if for no other reason than they generally were too busy trying to survive. Mastering some basic herbology, pharmacology, and field medicine before one went jaunting back in time would probably be the best course of action: successful healers wrote their own tickets back then, and lords were willing to pay well for their services. Whether one could end up getting rich enough to marry royalty...that might be a different matter. But one could end up getting rich enough to live fairly well. Maybe even purchasing a title and lands. Also, if one were perhaps slightly more flexible in one's ethics, a little basic knowledge of chemistry, physics, and weapons design could earn one an excellent living as a provider of military technology to a lord or king.
Without pre-existing language skills, and some helpful knowledge with which to make a living, if you got tossed back 1000 years, it would be mighty difficult to survive long enough to learn the languages and figure out a trade.
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I give you the most likely to succeed award. Knowledge of the lingo will take you far, I'm learning this the hard way right now. Might want to bone up on history as well. Wouldn't want to show in 1080 and start speaking Old French or French-Norman while in Britannia. The Normans weren't real popular there for a few hundred years starting around that time.
I think you'd do better if you were dropped in a large city such as London. Easier to blend in, esp if you were able to communicate.
Also might want to bone up on historical medical condition and illnesses. You're likely going to be carrying germs they can't fight off and they're going to be doing the same.