on occasions when the authorities were desirous of inflicting the extreme penalty with every mark of ignominy. At Franckfort, in the year 1638, a criminal was "unter den Galgen gerichtet und daselbsten begraben."[1]
We have few details of the manner in which the punishments of drowning and burying alive were effected; and probably the most authentic illustrations may be found in the representations of martyrdoms in ancient MSS., where the saint is seen precipitated into the river, or lowered into a draw-well; but the following account, in the Transactions of the Society of Northern Antiquaries,[2] affords a graphic sketch of the manner in which the criminal was sometimes consigned to the earth when buried alive.[3]
On the 20th of October, 1835, some labourers were engaged in digging a boundary-trench through the moor near Haraldskiær, in the district of Veile, in North Jutland, when one of them, at the depth of 1½ ell under the surface of the ground, observed an arm and a foot of a human body. The next clay they pursued the search, and began by pulling at the limbs they had discovered, but could not get the body up, a circumstance which caused them no little surprise, as it lay in the soft soil of the moor. On digging round it, however, they observed on closer examination that it was fastened down in the mire with wooden hooks tight over each knee, and one over each elbow. The body was still further secured by cross-bands of strong boughs, one over the breast, the other across the abdomen. The head lay to the east, with the feet to the west. The boughs and hooks having been removed, the body was taken up, and found to be that of a woman, preserved in a mummy-like state. Fragments of the dress in which it had been clad showed that it had been concealed in that spot for many centuries. A few weeks after, a further search led to the discovery of several remnants of clothing and eight fragments of wooden hooks and stakes; but, as the water increased, and the weather was not favourable, the examination was suspended until July in the following year, when a complete investigation of the spot was undertaken. The depth of the morass was then ascertained to be about eleven ells (Danish). The body was submitted to the inspection of an anatomist, who pronounced it to be that of a woman about fifty years old. There were the full number of
- ↑ Lersner, loc. cit.
- ↑ Annaler for Nordisk Oldteyndighed, 1836-7, p. 160.
- ↑ We learn no details of this mode of execution from the "Praxis Criminis" of Millæus, fol. Par. 1558, nor from "La Practique et Enchiridion des Causes Criminelles, par Josse de Damhoudere," Louvain, 4°, 1554, although in the latter there is express mention of "la fosse" as one of the punishments common at that day.
