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| Length | 40-50 feet |
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| Width | 10-20 feet |
Margaret took a break from her washing: the lye was beginning to sting her eyes. She wished she didn't have to do these stupid chores: her brother didn't, he was practicing with a sword. Boys got all the fun.
Above her, hidden in the gloomy thatch above her head, perched a tiny man, who heard her complaining thoughts, and decided to do something about it...
The long house, is, as the name implies, very long. Up to 60 feet long in some cases, the length is emphasized by the fact that long houses are typically quite narrow, rarely more than 15 feet in width.
The narrowness of the house is encouraged by the techniques used to build it. In what is known as cruck construction, a tree with a good stout branch is felled, all the other branches removed, the trunk cut off just above the main branch, and the resulting angled piece of wood split several times. This makes material for the primary content of the house's frame. See the page on cruck construction for more details.
Once the house is framed, wattle and daub gives the walls structure: thin rods of various types of wood are woven together into mats fastened between the frame timbers, and a coating of mud or clay applied to give it structure.
The long house has a main long room which takes up the bulk of the house, and a small, inner room at the end.
