Merchants would bring big wooden barrels full of herring from Amsterdam to sell to the village. Then they could scrub the bath with baking soda - which existed already in those days! - and remove the smell of the herring. And these big wooden barrels were very useful. They would use them for storage, and many were filled with cabbage that would ferment through the winter. Sometimes they put in a few apples, too.
There was a woman in the village - annoying, self-absorbed - who would use the herring barrel and fill it up with water and take a warm bath, outside. She would strip down and get into the water, like her own spa. The kids liked to play pranks on her, and throw things into her bath that would splash and scare her. We would laugh and run away before she could get out, nude, and chase them away.
I likes telling this story to Josh, and his sons. Because they are mischievous too.