Cover the palm with sand, ashes, or any non-conductor, and calmly put
the live coals on it. Which ancient “sell” will be found in the first
German mediæval play, entitled “The Burning Iron,” by Hans Sachs,
“performed for the first time in Nuremberg in the year 1531.” A peasant
woman suspects her husband of some crime, and she arranges with her
mother that he must pass under the ordeal of the “burning iron”—that is,
a piece of iron made red-hot must be picked up with his bare hand, and
carried round the room. If his hand remain unscathed, he is innocent; if
he be burnt, then he is guilty. The husband promises to undergo the
ordeal; but before doing so, manages to place, unseen by his wife, a
flat piece of wood upon the hollow of his hand, and with this deception
he passes through the ordeal successfully. Mr. Hanky Panky believes this
gentleman to have been his “long-lost brother.”
[Illustration]