03/02/2026
Got a supposed witch in your tree? 🧙. Perhaps her herbal remedy upset someone. Or she may have nagged too much! 😬
'YE OLD DUCKING CHAIR: FORDWICH, ENGLAND. 1900'
Ducking stools were not used as instruments of punishment, but were often used as a test of witchcraft, rooted in deeply flawed beliefs about purity and the supernatural.
The practice was based on the idea that water, seen as a pure and God given element, would reject those who were allied with evil forces.
The accused, most often a woman, would be strapped into a wooden chair or bound with ropes and then fully submerged in a river, or pond.
After a period she was pulled back out to see whether she was still alive.
If she drowned, her death was taken as proof that she was not a witch, as she supposedly lacked supernatural powers to protect herself. If she survived, this was interpreted as evidence that she had been aided by dark forces, and she would then be condemned as a witch and executed, often by burning.
The last recorded uses of similar ducking devices for punishment,occurred around eighty years earlier. These included Mrs Gamble in Plymouth in 1808, Jenny Pipes, described at the time as “a notorious woman”, in 1809, and Sarah Leeke in 1817, both cases recorded in Leominster.
