God this is accurate...

Not to take away from the modern day in the slightest, because yes.

However, the left panel is historically inaccurate. Source: Research my wife has done in regard to the trial of Grace Sherwood, the Witch of Pungo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Sherwood

Colonial Williamsburg puts on an evening program - Cry Witch! - that reënacts the supposed trial. With more research over the years, we now think there wasn't a trial in the first place (there was ambiguity because the Capitol where records were kept had a fire sometime in the 1800s iirc).

But we do know that there was a ducking. Witchduck Road in Viriginia Beach (formerly Princess Anne County) is near to the body of water that took place.

So it is commonly "known" that if the alleged witch floats, she is guity, and if she sinks, she is innocent. And thus either is convicted of being a witch and put to death, or drowns.

However, this is not the case.

In both cases, the woman was expected not to sink down underneath the water and drown, but to remain at the surface of the water - like we do when we're in water. So what's the "floating' bit?

The people of that era believed that witches were in cahoots with Satan, who being of fire and hell in brimstone and such repelled water. Witches were believed to be hydophobic, repelling water - to the point that when you placed a true witch in the water, she would float above the surface, not sinking into the surface like a normal person.

Thus, the floating they were talking about was floating above the water, not in it but at the surface. So in neither case was the woman expected to sink.

Indeed, we do have records of the ducking of Grace Sherwood, and the witnesses testified that she floated above the water, unnaturally, i.e. not in the water like would have actually happened.

All that said, women can't win anyway, so it's little comfort. But this particular belief about ducking is a myth worth correcting.

TIL, thank you!

<3 But it was still extremely unfair since we know that nobody actually is hydrophobic, so anyone "witnessed" floating was still bullshit.