Help with an historical legal question if you don't mind.

[ThomWV]

I can never remember, was it:

The old question is worth considering anytime an imporant law is about to be passed.

[YOY]

1. Ironic because 1. The human body floats. 2. Well...you get the obvious part.

n.t.

[Brickbat]

2. Only witches knew how to swim.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Guilt was God ordained. The innocent didn't deserve to remain on earth with idiots.

Of course, there is an alternate theory that the forfeiture of land by the convicted or the dead was reason enough to off them.

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. You have come to the right place.

It is we who are so wise in the ways of science.

If you're a democrat, you must know these things.

[GirlAfire]

5. Float = Guilty

Trial by water could also be the consumption of 'bitter water' without harm. Or, it could be a variant on the dunking of witches, the accused would be bound and thrown into water - an innocent person would sink and a guilty person would float. The innocent person would then be rescued, not left to drown - not always successfully. Witches were imagined to supernaturally float above water because they had renounced baptism when entering the Devil's service.

:D

EDIT: For some reason, the link won't work, but it comes from Economic Expert.com

[havocmom]

6. sank = water accepted her = innocent; float = water threw her back = guilty

If floated, guilty and burned. If sank, innocent, but drowned.

Either way, somebody profited by the lady's demise, either by getting her property, or removing her as competition.

[gkhouston]

7. We've got a nice big pond over here. Let's find out. Anything you'd like to confess? n/t

[ChoppinBroccoli]

8. The Witch Would Obviously Use Her Powers To Save Herself

So she would float. At which time they'd fish her out and burn her to death. Meanwhile, the "innocent" non-witch would sink to the bottom of the lake and drown, thus proving her innocence.

That was all archaic shit, though. Things are much different now. Science as evolved to the point that now they just sit her on a giant scale and see if she weighs the same as a duck.

[ThomWV]

9. Or sink closer to the pit of hell and so be closer to her fiery demon love, Satan himself.

Just another possibility, I suppose.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. Witches also cry out when branded with a hot poker

Thy are surprisingly easy to spot.

[ThomWV]

12. I wish I had know that last week.

[jemelanson]

11. It she was innocent she would sink, and most likely drown,

The wisdom of that time said if she were a Witch, the water, medium of Christian Baptism would reject her and she would float. Did not matter in most cases it was the old if you were accused, you were guilty. The results were the same. You were either drown, or killed. In the US, I believe the Witches were mostly hanged. In Europe they were burned alive, unless they were male Witches, then they were strangled then burned, they property confiscated and added to the holdings of the "Church." There were cases where they were already dead and buried and they were still accused, tried found guilty, their bones dug up and burned, and the property of their descendent's taken by the "Church" This was a 500 year reign of terror, another one of those "bright" spots on the History of the Christian Church.

BTW: Satan is a part of Christianity...the Pagans have no such member of their Divinity.

[damntexdem]

13. Has to be float to be guilty.

Otherwise, the innocent could have gone unscathed, rather than drowning in their innocence.

Can't punish the 'guilty' without also killing the innocent, after all.

[kenny blankenship]

14. witches float because of their secret sympathy with wood, the wood which is used to burn them

Since Holy Mother Church has instructed us in the proper disposal of witches and warlocks and this method prescribes wood and fire, which is never normally to be used to dispose of bodies, there must be some secret unseen connection between the corruptible flesh of witches and that of trees. When they are both burned, the ashes of wood and witch are indistinguishable, as any child knows, indicating further the occult sympathy between their substances. Having verified that wood and witch are in some kind of material secret sympathy, we can assume they share other material properties as well. Wood floats in water - it flees water just as it is readily consumed by fire. Would not a witch, like wood, also float in water? Logically, the the witch should behave as wood would behave, by trying to float. If the accused witch sinks to drown on the other hand, the charge of witchcraft is disproved and the soul of the accused floats to Heaven blameless. All's well that ends well.

It's all very scientific, so lay people can be forgiven if they do not appreciate the subtleties of the water trial for witchcraft at first glance.

[lumberjack_jeff]

15. And ducks. n/t

[mdmc]

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