Cheating - The Solution

Originally posted by Ichibanov
All due respect to Sir Bedevere, but I still think the best way to know is to build a bridge out of them.

"But it gives the opportunity to mention the scale of Oudewater in the Netherlands. The town got a patent from Charles V to weigh witches and issue certificates. It seems that the town operated the scale honestly, because the accused came even from abroad to be weighed.

It was certainly necessary as in the 1728 Szeged witch hunt the weight of one fat woman "was" 26.25 gram and a fat man 20 gram. And this madness was published in the 67th issue of Wienerische Zeitung in 1728.


The Oudewater scales were featured in a recent issue of the Fortean Times. They're still there, and for a small fee you can be weighed on them and declared to be "probably not a witch". For a little bit extra you can get a certificate of this.

If I remember the article correctly, this particular town was famous from the Middle Ages for having the most accurate and scrupulously honest scales around. So during the witch-hunts it was the obvious choice for unbiased witch-weighing.

The idea was prevalent (in the Netherlands and round about, anyway) that a witch must weigh much less than an ordinary person of the same build. Otherwise how could witches fly to their sabbats? So the judging process wasn't based on the accused witch's actual weight, but whether the weight was reasonable for a person of that size."

www.QI.com

Another version of the weighing idea was to compare the person's weight to that of a bible. If the accused is heavier than the bible (or some other holy item) then they are weighed down by sin and must be a witch. If the holy book proves weightier than the accused then they are innocent. I suggest using My System as a chess bible to weigh the accused against.