“THROUGH FIRE AND WATER”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 June 1931, Page 12

“THROUGH FIRE AND WATER”

The phrase'“We come through fire and water,” occurs in Psalm l.xvi, 12, doubtless in allusion to the deliverance of the Jews from the “iron furnace” of Egypt (Dent, iv., 20), and from the waters of the lted Sea. The expression is, however, probably derived mainly from the ordeals, which in the early ages were so frequently practised in order to establish the guilt or innocence of an accused person. Trial by ordeal existed in England from the time of the Confessor to that Henry 111, who abolished it. The popular modes were those of fire (or the hot iron) and of water, the former for freemen and people of rank, the latter for peasants, lii the ordeal of fire, nine red-hot ploughshares were placed at irregular distances from each other, and the accused had to walk over them barefoot and blindfold. If he escaped touching the shares he was innocent—if burnt, guilty. The ordeal of water was either by plumping the bare arm into boiling water or by casting the_ accused, bound hand and foot, into a river or pond. U he floated it was an evidence of guilt; if he sank he v'as acquitted.

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