krossite said: Wait,is it a "wood=duck=witch" witch trial or some type of real witch trial?
Witch dunking! Basically if she doesn't drown, she's a witch. If she does drown, she wasn't a witch. Or something like that. Similar logic was used in the "tie witch to heavy rocks, throw in local pond" method as well. Witch trials of that era were hilariously horrible things. That or the history books sensationalized them. Don't think there were many to trials though.
Thimble said: Witch dunking! Basically if she doesn't drown, she's a witch. If she does drown, she wasn't a witch. Or something like that. Similar logic was used in the "tie witch to heavy rocks, throw in local pond" method as well. Witch trials of that era were hilariously horrible things. That or the history books sensationalized them. Don't think there were many to trials though.
Those methods make sense when you consider that often the so-called witches were often unpopular to begin with in the community, as I recall reading someewhere.
Flippernino said: According to Arthur Miller, at the height of witch hysteria malicious teenage girls could accuse people they didn't like of witchery and - BAM, they were good as dead.
That wasn't a historically accurate book, if anything it was a commentary on McCarthyism. But there are other sources you could use that would say essentially the same thing.