seven books of the Attick antiquities

Arch^ologU AtticA.Lih,6,C.if.6* 287
The Cuftomes ufed boih in the Little and Greitoathes too,
in abjuring and purging of crimes, were fometimes, creeping
upon their hands thorow the fire, 01 holding in their bands
a red hot Iron, ( {f.vl^h they called it, fuch a thing as ^r.ax*'
goras , and his Scholler Enripidis ^ took the 5unnc to be ) ? *'^°^- ^"'V*
ioppofing (as the ScholiaftTaies upon Sophocles) tkv «-» aVo- '"
yti Tii xuafThfj^ttTi it 7k7ci$ uH sL>.yiiv tljAt if thtj veere not guilty of
the crime , thtj JhouUnot befenfihle ofthepair.e. Thus the fellow
in yiwri^ovfwonid have taken his oath to Crfow, that he
buried not Poljr.ices. The like coftome, we read to have been
in ofe among the Saxon anceftors, and for the fame pur pole,
under the name o^FireOrdeaL For Emma the Mother of King
Edward the Confeflbr , pafling blindfolded in the fpaccs between
a great many red- hot Plow- (hares laid on the ground;
and Kuntgftnd the Wife of theEmperour Hfwrjrthefecond
holding a ted-hot Iron in her hand, receiving co hurt thereby,
cleared themfelves of the crime of Adultery laid to their
charge. Sometimes they took the Iron and threw it into the
Sea, folemnly vowing to keep the c^at^ without ^rf^.
h r /;• &
Sometimes ( as I have known Boyes do among us ) they wrote
the oath in a Paper, and threw it into the water: if itfwamme,
and the water could endure it, hefworeirQC; but if it funk,
and the water would not fufifer it to be feen, he was to be pur
rifhed immediatiy withoct more ado. And this puis me in
mind of that oath of Adrajim, and the Argivi , for amity and
League with the Athenians , which the Poet faies they would
have written in the hollow of a tripiUy^ud the tripw to be fent
to Delphos to ty^psli(f, to be there kept for a teftimocy,and a
mcmoriall.
to be produced when occafionlhould required ^o^AchiUts
Tatitu ( in his 8th book de (^litophantU , & Xeucippes amort-'
^w ) fpeaks of a cuftooie, if a Wench were sccufed of
Whore-