TRIALS BY FIRE AND FIRE-JUGGLERS. 647 



the fire ; the priest then threw holy water upon them, pronounced ex- 

 orcisms and benedictions, which may be found in the formulas of 

 Marculfe and Saint Dunstan, made them kiss the Gospels, and then the 

 trial began. When it was over, the hand, arm, or foot that had been 

 in contact with the fire was wrapped in a linen cloth, under the seal of 

 the judge, not to be opened till after three days had passed.* 



It is not easy to give now a natural explanation for all of these 

 facts ; we are too little informed respecting the accompanying circum- 

 stances. It appears, however, that we might, besides having recourse 

 to the cases of hysterical insensibility described by Dr. Regnard, con- 

 nect the power of enduring the trials with one of the three following 

 causes : diminution of the sensation of heat by evaporation from the 

 surface of the skin ; insensibility obtained for the skin by means of 

 preliminary artifices ; and illusion respecting the intensity of the source 

 of heat. 



With respect to the first of these causes, the experiments of M. 

 Boutigny are well known ; and it is possibly only the want of hardi- 

 ness that prevents our discovering more numerous applications of it. 

 Dr. Davenport, an EDglish physician, gives one of them. He says he 

 has seen a workman in the dock-yards at Chatham plunge his bare 

 hand into boiling pitch. The man tucked up his shirt-sleeve, put in 



* [A volume of the " Calendars of State Papers ; Colonial Series," recently pub- 

 lished in London, under the editorial supervision of "W". Noel Sainsbury, of the Public 

 Record Office, contains in a letter of 1620, from an agent of the East India Company, in 

 the Island of Tecoe, a description of the native rite of purgation from the charge of 

 murder, which closely resembles the Saxon ordeal. The account is the more valuable 

 and interesting, because it is, to all appearance, authentic, and not tainted with the su- 

 perstitious credulity with which the stories dating from the middle ages are colored. 

 An Englishman having been killed by some of the islanders, Nicolls, the chief factor, 

 obtained their king's license to summon the suspected persons and make them touch 

 the corpse. All except one, who was ill, obeyed the summons, but betrayed no sign of 

 guilt ; whereupon the king ordered the absentee to be sent for. " He took," says the 

 narrator, " the dead man by the hand with extreme quaking and many distracted gest- 

 ures and answers, but would not hold it any time. Nicolls urged this to be the man, 

 and required, justice. The king caused him to be bound, and professed in his con- 

 science that he was the man, but that he must be tried by their law also. ... A fire 

 was made, and an iron pan with a gallon of oil set to boil, till it came to such a de- 

 gree of heat that a green leaf dipped therein was sodden and shriveled. The pris- 

 oner was then, in testimony of his innocence, to take a small ball of brass, little big- 

 ger than a musket-shot, out of the oil with his naked hand, and if any burning or scald 

 appeared thereon he was contented to die. . . . Stripping up his sleeve above the el- 

 bow, and taking a kind of protestation, desiring that as he was clear he might pros- 

 per in this act, he dipped his hand to the wrist in the boiling oil, took out the ball, held 

 it fast, and crying ' Olla Basar I ' {' Great is the Lord ! '), tossed it up, caught it again, and 

 then cast it on the ground, showing his hand, which had no more sign of hurt than 

 if he had experimented the same in cold water ; the devil, as seems, being loath at that 

 time to lose his credit. The fellow was instantly released, and within an hour after 

 returned in his holiday apparel, and none so lusty as. he, though so weak before as to 

 be brought upon men^s shoulders to his trial. This was all the justice we could have 

 for our murdered man." Editor P. S. M.] 



