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Fire ordeal

Black's Law Dictionary · Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910

Black's Law Dictionary

The ordeal by fire or red-hot iron, which was performed either by taking up in the hand a piece of red-hot iron, of one, two, or three pounds weight, or by walking barefoot and blindfolded over nine red-hot plowshares, laid lengthwise at unequal distances 4 Bl. Comm. 343; Cowell.