238 
ORDEAL 
liar qualities in cases of blood-shedding ; and the scholiast on the 
A jax of Sophocles avers, that ablution of the hands was accounted 
edectual. Pausanias, in Corinth, informs us that Orestes expiated 
the murder of Clytemnestra in the waters of Hippocrene ; and we 
may remark the same notion in Virgil’s 2d iEneid. Thoas, in the 
Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripedes, delivers the doctrine as a canon, 
that Apollo in the Alcestis (v. 5.) declares his degradation during 
the time that he served Adrnetus, to have been considered as atone- 
ment for the murder of the Cyclops; and whether there be any dis- 
tant allusion to the Goel, in the fable of Orcus drinking the blood of 
the victims at the tombs of the dead, we cannot determine. When 
the fine for blood was accepted or the purification perfected, doubt- 
less some visible token of security, like the mark on Cain, was granted 
to the offender : thus when the injury is compromised among the 
Arabs, a mantle of security is given to the delinquent by the recon- 
ciled party. 
Ordeal. 
This was an ancient form of trial. There were two sorts of it more 
common than the rest in Europe, by fire, and by water : — the former 
was confined to persons of higher rank, the latter to the common 
people. Both these might be performed by deputy ; but the princi- 
pal was to answer for the success of the trial, the deputy only ven- 
turing some corporeal pain, for hire, or perhaps for friendship. The 
Fire Ordeal was performed either by taking up in hand, unhurt, a 
piece of red-hot iron, one, two, or three pounds weight ; or also by 
walking, barefoot and blindfold, over nine red-hot ploughshares, 
laid lengthwise at unequal distances : and if the party escaped being 
hurt, he was adjudged innocent, but if it happened otherwise, as 
without collusion it usually did, he was then condemned as guilty. 
Water Ordeal was performed either by plunging the bare arm up to 
the elbow in boiling water, and escaping unhurt thereby, or by casting 
the person suspected into a river or pond of cold water ; and if he 
floated therein, without any action of swimming, it was a decided 
evidence of his guilt; but if he sunk, he was acquitted. It is easy 
to trace out the traditional relics of this water ordeal, in the ignorant 
barbarity still practised in many countries to discover witches, by 
casting them into a pool of water, and drowning them, to prove their 
innocence. In the eastern empire the flre-ordeal was used for the 
same purpose by the emperor. Theodore Lascasis, who, attributing 
his sickness to magic, caused all those whom he suspected to handle 
the hot iron ; thus joining, as has been well remarked, to the most 
dubious crime in the world, the most dubious proof of innocence. 
Besides these methods of trial, there were some others common in 
Europe; the principal of which were, the judicial combat, and the ordeal 
of the cross. — The judicial combat was well suited to the genius 
and spirit of fierce and warlike nations, and was one of the most 
ancient and universal modes of trial. It was exceedingly common in 
Germany in very remote ages. It was also used in some countries 
on the continent at pretty early’periods ; it is not, however, mentioned 
