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Written by Simon Williams
Picture an English village pond in the dawn light. Mist curls over the still water. Birds stir in the hedgerows, and the villagers gather, breath visible in the chill air. But today, they are not here to fish or fetch water. They've come to watch a woman tied and thrown into the pond. If she floats, she's a witch. If she sinks and drowns… she's innocent.
So ran the logic behind one of history's most chilling practices: trial by water. Known variously as "witch ducking" or the "swimming test," it was just one of several brutal ordeals devised to extract a confession, or simply confirm a suspect's supposed guilt.
The medieval and early modern periods in Britain were times of deep superstition and fear. Between the late 1400s and the early 1700s, waves of witch hunts swept through the country. Communities terrified of famine, plague, or misfortune desperately sought scapegoats. And time and again, these scapegoats were women, often poor, elderly, or outspoken.
This article examines the mechanics of water ordeals through some true, haunting tales of those who faced the ducking stool or the pond.
Trial by water condemned thousands of accused witches across Britain between the 1400s and 1700s. Those who floated were declared guilty; those who sank were deemed innocent but often drowned. Fear, superstition, and scapegoating drove communities to turn brutal ritual into community spectacle.
The notion of water as a "truth-teller" stretches back centuries. In medieval England, the concept of the ordeal was rooted in the belief that God would not allow an innocent person to suffer unjustly. If a suspect endured pain without injury, or survived an impossible feat, it proved divine intervention on their behalf.
Water, as a symbol of purity, was believed to "reject" evil. Hence the twisted logic:
It sounds absurd to modern ears. Yet this idea thrived across Europe, surviving through medieval law and seeping into Tudor and Stuart England's witch trials.
While trial by water was used for various crimes, from theft to heresy, it gained particular infamy in connection with witchcraft. By the 17th century, the swimming test had become an iconic feature of witch-hunting fervour.
Despite popular images of elaborate ducking stools, the swimming test was often quite rudimentary. Here's how it generally worked:
In practice, sinking often meant drowning, or near-drowning. Floating was, ironically, quite likely, given the air trapped in clothing or the suspect's natural buoyancy, especially if wearing petticoats.
Important distinction: The ducking stool, often confused with the swimming test, was a different punishment. The stool involved repeatedly dunking a convict into water, used to punish scolds, gossips, or suspected witches after a verdict rather than to determine guilt.
Though Grace Sherwood's ordeal happened in colonial Virginia, it's worth mentioning because it perfectly illustrates how English practices crossed the Atlantic. In 1706, accused of bewitching livestock and crops, Grace was ordered to be "ducked." Tied and tossed into a river, she floated, thus "proving" her guilt. She spent years in prison. Eventually released, she lived to old age, but never entirely escaped suspicion.
British settlers carried these customs overseas, ensuring the dark shadow of the swimming test stretched far beyond English soil.
Closer to home, we find the Bideford witches: Temperance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards, and Mary Trembles. In 1682, these three women from Bideford, Devon, were accused of witchcraft. Their confessions, extracted under pressure, included tales of imps, familiars, and diabolical pacts.
Though records don't explicitly mention the swimming test in their case, Devon was no stranger to water ordeals. Local magistrates frequently ordered such tests to confirm suspicions. The Bideford witches were ultimately hanged, among the last in England to be executed for witchcraft.
Records from Northamptonshire reveal ducking stools used well into the 18th century. Public duckings took place on market days, turning punishment into entertainment. One account describes a woman ducked repeatedly until she lost consciousness, not necessarily because she was a witch, but because she was a "scold."
Though ostensibly separate from witch trials, the punishment often overlapped, as suspicion of witchcraft and social transgressions blurred together.
No account of British witchcraft would be complete without Matthew Hopkins, self-styled Witchfinder General. During the English Civil War, Hopkins terrorised East Anglia, accusing dozens of witchcraft. He employed numerous "tests," including pricking the skin for "witch marks," forced confessions, and, on occasion, swimming trials.
Hopkins's reign of terror ended only after the government began to question his methods. Nonetheless, the damage was done. An estimated 100 to 300 people died during his campaigns between 1644 and 1647.
Today, floating seems innocuous enough, after all, it's basic physics. But to early modern minds, the sight of a woman refusing to sink was proof of supernatural forces. Yet several natural factors played into the ordeal's tragic outcomes:
Ironically, even if a woman survived ducking, the ordeal itself could leave permanent injury or trauma. Broken ribs, dislocated limbs, and pneumonia were common consequences.
The tide finally turned in the early 18th century. The Witchcraft Act of 1735 effectively ended prosecutions for witchcraft in Britain by reclassifying witchcraft not as a supernatural crime, but as fraud. Those claiming magical powers faced fines or imprisonment rather than execution.
Gradually, the swimming test fell out of use. Yet remnants of the practice lingered in folk memory for decades. As late as the 19th century, mobs occasionally tried to "swim" suspected witches unofficially.
One historian records a near-ducking in Leicestershire in 1863, when a woman was accused of bewitching cattle. Only police intervention prevented her from being thrown into the village pond.
Today, we look back at witch ducking with a mixture of horror and disbelief. How could communities inflict such cruelty on neighbours, often elderly women who'd done nothing more than quarrel, live alone, or tend herbs?
Yet echoes of those centuries linger. In modern Britain, paganism and Wicca are legally protected faiths, with thousands identifying as witches or magical practitioners. Far from hiding in fear, many celebrate their beliefs openly.
Nonetheless, witchcraft remains a potent symbol, in literature, film, and culture. Stories of ducking stools and swimming tests fuel countless novels and documentaries, feeding both fascination and cautionary tales.
These historic witch trials remind us how fear can twist reason and how communities can turn on individuals in search of someone to blame. Though Britain no longer dunks people in ponds to "prove" guilt, witch hunts, in metaphorical form, still happen, in tabloids, online mobs, or social media scandals. The machinery of suspicion and scapegoating is alarmingly easy to revive.
If you stand beside a serene village pond today, the ripples might look harmless. But beneath those waters lie centuries of fear, superstition, and injustice. The floating woman became a symbol, not of witchcraft, but of how fragile human mercy can be when panic takes hold.
The legacy of witch ducking, the swimming test, and other ordeals calls us to remember a time when purity was measured by drowning and when the very element that gives life became a tool of persecution.
May we keep learning from those dark waters, so that justice never again demands such a cruel test.
Go deeper into the evidence
Witchcraft in England reached its most documented chapter in 1612. Both resources below tell that story in full: the book into the forensic documentary record, the download into the primary sources you can work through yourself.
The Pendle Witch Conspiracy
The full forensic account of the 1612 trials: Nowell's methods, Potts' propaganda, and the evidence the official record tried to bury.
Read on Amazon →The Pendle Machine
Work through the primary sources yourself. Examine the confessions, the court records, and the child testimony that sent ten people to the gallows.
Download now →The swimming test, also called trial by water, was a method used in early modern England to determine whether a suspected witch was guilty. The accused was bound, often with hands tied to feet, and thrown into a body of water. The belief, rooted in medieval ideas about water as a pure element, held that water would reject the guilty. Anyone who floated was deemed a witch; anyone who sank was considered innocent, though they might still drown. The test was never formally part of English common law but was widely used by local magistrates and vigilante groups.
In practice, the accused was bound, blessed by a priest in some accounts, and immersed in a river, pond, or pit. Observers watched whether the body sank or floated. The test exploited basic physics: clothing trapped air and produced buoyancy, making floating likely regardless of guilt. Those who floated faced further prosecution, torture, or hanging. Those who sank might be pulled out before drowning, but the ordeal itself caused broken ribs, dislocated joints, and pneumonia in many survivors. The test's outcome was effectively decided before it began.
The two are frequently confused but served different purposes. The ducking stool was a chair mounted on a long beam over a pond, used as a punishment after conviction, particularly for women accused of scolding or gossiping. The suspect was ducked repeatedly into the water as humiliation or correction. The swimming test, by contrast, was used to determine guilt before or during trial. Someone subjected to the swimming test had not yet been convicted; the ordeal was the evidence. Both involved water and both targeted women disproportionately, which explains why the distinction has blurred over centuries.
Matthew Hopkins was a lawyer's son who, between 1644 and 1647, operated as a self-styled Witchfinder General across East Anglia during the disruption of the English Civil War. He charged fees to communities for identifying witches and employed a range of tests including sleep deprivation, skin pricking for insensitive marks, and, on occasion, the swimming test. His campaigns resulted in an estimated 100 to 300 executions, making him responsible for more witch deaths than in the previous century combined. Government concern about his methods eventually curtailed his activities; he died in 1647.
Some did, but survival brought no real relief. A woman who floated was considered proven guilty and would face trial, further torture, or hanging. A woman who sank and was pulled out before drowning still faced social ruin and the physical consequences of cold water shock, near-drowning, and physical restraint. Some communities held the test multiple times if results were inconclusive. The historical record contains cases where women who survived the test were immediately subjected to pricking or other examinations. The swimming test was designed to produce a guilty verdict regardless of what happened in the water.
The Witchcraft Act of 1735 formally ended prosecutions for witchcraft in England, reframing the offence as fraud rather than a supernatural crime. Official trials by water had largely ceased before this, as courts became increasingly sceptical of confessions extracted under duress. However, unofficial mob duckings continued in rural areas into the 19th century. A near-ducking was recorded in Leicestershire in 1863 when a woman was accused of bewitching livestock; only police intervention prevented the crowd from throwing her into the village pond.
This article is part of the Wizardry and Witching series. Read all articles at historiesandcastles.com/blogs/witches.
→ Pendle Witches: The Real Story: The 1612 trials that defined English witch-hunting at its most organised and deadly
→ Witch Marks and Secret Symbols: The protective carvings people left in buildings to ward off the evil they so deeply feared
→ Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: How medieval Church and folk belief built the framework that made witch trials possible
→ The Witch's Familiar: The animal companions accusers used as evidence of diabolic pact in trial testimony
→ Jennet Device: The Child Witness: The nine-year-old whose testimony condemned her own family at the Lancaster Assizes
The physics of the swimming test, why bound bodies trapped air and tended to float, is well documented and verifiable. The court records for named cases such as the Bideford and Manningtree trials are genuine historical documents. Some individual details reported in popular retellings, exact dialogue, or the precise reasoning of individual accusers, are reconstruction rather than verbatim record, and should be read as illustrative of the period rather than a transcript.
Published: 14 February 2026 | Last Updated: 11 July 2026
In this episode, we peel back the layers of myth and "witch-themed" folklore to conduct a forensic investigation into England’s most notorious miscarriage of justice:the 1612 Pendle witch trials. Part of the Histories and Castles Deep Dive series.
