Catching up on forgotten words

Since I didn't get my page-a-day calendar until January 9th or so, I have a few new forgotten English words to share with you that you might like. And since today is a slow posting day it is a good day to get caught up.

bunnel - A dried hemp-stalk used by smoakers to light their pipes.
-Captain Francis Grose's Provincial Glossary, 1811

shumpgullion - a glutton.
-Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905

scurryfunge - A hasty tidying of the house between the time you see a neighbor and the time she knocks on your door.
-John Gould's Maine Lingo: Boiled Owls, Billdads and Wazzats, 1975

pulpatoon - A dish made of rabbits, fowl, etc., in a crust of forced (stuffed) meat.
-Walter Skeat's Glossary of Tudor and Stuart Words, 1914

From Latin pulpamentum, tidbits.
-William Toone's Glossary of Obsolete and Uncomon Words, 1832

To make a pulpatoon of pigeons ... half roast six or eight pigeons, and lay them in a crust of forc'd meat... Scrape a pound of veal and two pounds of marrow and beat it together in a stone mortar.
-Eliza Smith's Compleat Housewife, 1758

In 1770, a huge Christmas pie was baked for holiday consupmtion in London. According to the Newcastle Chronicle, it was made of "two bushels of flour, twenty pounds of butter, four geese, two turkeys, two rabbits, four wild ducks, two woodcocks, six snipes, four partridges, two neats' tongues, two curlews, seven blackbirds and six pigeons.... It was near nine feet in circumference at bottom, weigh[ed] about twelve stone, [and] will take two men to present it to table. It is neatly fitted with a case and four small wheels to facilitate its use to every guest that inclines to partake of it at table."

belly-bender - Floating pieces of ice, or weak ice, which bend under one as he passes from one cake to another. Boys take great pleasure in this precarious amusement.
- William Craigie and James Hulbert's Dictionary of American English, 1940

England's Coldest Day
Starting around 1205 and for several centuries, January 14 was generally thought to be the coldest day of the year in England. The claim was renewed in 1564, a few years into the reign of Elizabeth I, when a "frost fair" was held on the frozen over River Thames. As John Stow's Sumarie of Englyshe Chronicles (1565) described: "The ice became firme and... then all sortes of men, women and children went boldly upon the icein most partes... People were many that set up boothes and standings upon the ice, as fruit-sellers, victuallers, that sold beere and wine, shoemakers and a barber's tent." These invigorating gatherings cropped up occasionally during cold spells through 1814, allowing enterprising shopkeepers and fun-loving locals a unique outdoor experience. But the formerly broader and shallower Thames was narrowed by the nineteenth century Embankment project, creating a swifter, deeper river that was unlikely to freeze.