Note 888 — BOOK VII.835 MAN, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTS.

In all ages, it has been a prevalent superstition, that those endowed with magical qualities will not sink in water, encouraged, no doubt, by the cunning of those who might wish to make the charge a means of wreaking their vengeance. If they sank, they were to be deemed innocent, but were drowned; if, on the other hand they floated, they were deemed guilty, and handed over to the strong arm of the law. In reference to this usage, Brand says (“Popular Antiquities,” vol. iii.), “Swimming a witch was another kind of popular ordeal. By this method she was handled not less indecently than cruelly: for she was stripped naked and cross bound, the right thumb to the left toe, and the left thumb to the right toe. In this state she was cast into a pond or river, in which, if guilty, it was thought impossible for her to sink.”