Do we really have a scientific understanding of the phenomenon? I mean sure we know that electrons are involved and different concentrations of electrons in different areas causes a charge but the old story I was told as a child, that you rubbed electrons from one object onto another, really doesn't explain anything. Here's something on the topic I recently read
http://phys.org/news/2011-06-northwestern-team-theory-static-electricity.html
You might be interested in some previous answers from the FAQ section entitled "Ancients' views on static electricity":
Did the ancients give one another tiny static shocks? What did they think it was and are there accounts of this? - 67 comments, over 1 year old.
The top level comments in this thread contextualize electricity as but one mystery in an environment that was filled with mysteries for ancient peoples.
How was static electricity rationalized before the discovery and understanding of electricity? - 53 comments, over 8 months old.
The top level comments cite ancient sources to showcase directly what some of the ancients (in this case Romans and Persians) thought of static electricity.
before the discovery of electricity, what did people think of static electricity shocks? - 54 comments, over 4 months old.
The commenters in this thread trace the reasoning for electricity from Ancient Egypt to Ancient Greece and also include bits about Nikola Tesla.