And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her and become bitter, and her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot; and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean, then shall she be free, and shall conceive seed.”[4] Compurgation of accused persons, by fire, existed among the ancient Greeks,[5] and the Hindus practiced ordeal in nine different ways,—by the balance, by fire, by water, by poison, by the _cosha_, or drinking water, in which the images of the sun and other deities had been washed, by chewing rice, by hot oil, by red hot iron, and by drawing two images out of a jar, into which they had been thrown.[6] The most generally used ordeals throughout ancient Europe were: Trial by battle, in which the vanquished one was adjudged guilty; trial by the ordeal of fire; trial by water; trial by the corsned; the trial of the eucharist; the trial by the cross and the test by judgment of the bier. In trial by battle, the accuser and accused fought in mortal combat to determine the guilt or innocence of the suspected person.[7] In the trial by fire, the accused walked bare-footed, over red hot plow-shares, or coals of fire,[8] carried a red hot iron in his hand, or walked through flames, clad in a suit of wax, spread over woolen cloth, known as the “trial of the waxen shirt,” because if he was unhurt by the fire and the wax was unmelted, he was considered innocent, but otherwise was adjudged guilty.[9] The trial by water was either by cold or boiling water. If the former, which was the test usually applied to witches, the guilt was determined by the ability of the accused to float or sink, when cast into the water.[10] Where the ordeal by boiling water was used, the accused had to take a stone out of boiling water, by inserting his hand into a caldron, containing boiling water, as deep as his wrist, and if the triple ordeal was used, the boiling water was deepened so that he had to insert his arm as far as the elbow to get the stone.[11] In the _offa execrata_, or corsned ordeal, a priest put the corsned or hallowed cheese and bread, in the mouth of the accused, with various chants and imprecations and if he swallowed it, he was freed from the judgment, but if it stuck in his throat, he was held to be proven guilty of the offense with which he was charged.[12] The test of the eucharist was chiefly applied among the monks and clergy, for it was believed that when they took the test, God would smite the guilty, with sickness or death.[13]