[anvandare]

Well, if she weighs the same as a duck...

It seems to be a variation of §1 - because witchcraft is a serious crime and the god of rivers (Idlurugu) would obviously drown anyone who was a witch.[1]

§1: accuse someone of murder -> (can't prove your case) -> your own life is forfeit

§2: accuse someone of witchcraft -> (can't prove your case) AND (they prove they are not punished/drowned by the river god) -> your own life is forfeit

Trial by ordeal was an ancient thing, even back then.[2] It is the sort of thing you see where there was no real distinction between legal and theological, between law and rite. Indeed, Töyräänvuori concludes:

>Arbitration via suprarational trial seems to be required in cases where it is the word of one person against another, and no forensic evidence can settle the manner. Anthropologically, the ordeal is supposed to reveal whether the witness or accused is lying through the threat of supernatural punishment, functioning as a primitive lie-detector test. Its use in European witch trials likely also follows from this function, as accusations of witchcraft were often spread through social contagion. An important facet of the trials is that they seem to have been meant to acquit the accused innocent of the crime in most of the cases it was used.[2]

It's interesting that unproven (false) accusations and perjury are at the very top of the legal code, with severe punishments attached. Which are exactly the sort of abuses you'd see pop up when a legal code is in place.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlurugu#Idlurugu_as_a_legal_p...

[2] http://saa.uaic.ro/wp-content/uploads/6.-Joanna-T%C3%96YR%C3...