Before Saint Andrew, there was the sun, and pagans needed a date to throw a thank-you party in its honour before it goes to sleep for the winter.

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"Homeless people will sleep in there in the winter - the welcoming sense is guaranteed, " one protester said.

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Whatever their devotion to poverty, they could not sleep on the ground in winter when they were in Germany.

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San'ya has aged with its residents, old men with creased faces and missing teeth who squat and smoke on the pavements, drift from bar to bar, or sleep it off in the winter sun on cardboard and plastic matting.

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They believed that if the animals saw their shadows, winter would continue, and so they went back to sleep.

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In the camps that winter, deep in a valley, men could freeze to death in their sleep.

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If the animals saw their shadows, winter would go on for another six weeks, and they could go back to sleep, according to the tradition.

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In winter, when the sky got dark early and Mother worried about her making the long commute home, Naima would sleep on my bedroom floor.

NEWYORKER: Naima