38 Facts relating to Marlborough 



construction had been in use amongst the Spaniards in the "West 

 Indies for the punishment of refractory slaves. The " Witchs' 

 Branks, or Bridle," preserved some years since in the steeple at 

 Forfar, North Britain, is of this form, but in place of a flat plate, 

 a sharply-pointed gag, furnished with three spikes, entering the 

 mouth, gives to this example a fearfully savage aspect. The date, 

 1661, is punched upon the hoop. In the old statistical account of 

 the parish of Forfar, it is described as the bridle with which victims 

 condemned for witchcraft were led to execution.* The facility, 

 however, with which the single hoop might be slipped off the head, 

 led to the addition of a curved band of iron passing over the fore- 

 head, with an aperture for the nose, and so formed as to clip the 

 crown of the head, rendering escape from the bridle scarcely 

 practicable. Of this variety the specimen preserved in the Ash- 

 inolean Museum at Oxford supplies an example. (See Woodcut). 



Brank in tbe Ashmolean Museum. 



^ This relique of cruelty has been carried away from Forfar, and it was in the 

 collection of the late Mr. Deuchar of Edinburgh. See Dr. Wilson's ' Prehistoric 

 Annuls,' p, 693, and Sir J, Dalyell's ' Darker Superstitions of Scotland,' p. 636. 



