In the first centuries of the early modern period, sleighs (or sledges, slides, sleds; German Schlitten; MHG slite; Italian slitta; Swedish släde) on runners served less for sliding down hillsides (toboggans) than for the traffic and transport of persons or freight over level snow or ice. This did not rule out their use for sport, however. Sleighs were found all the way to northern Italy, because in the period of the Little Ice Age winters were often so long that other forms of travel were hardly possible outside the cities and towns. Sleighs were pulled by muscle power of humans …