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Lie detector

Enough to strike fear into the heart of any prisoner ; this portrait of the devil with his tongue hanging out, looks down from the corner of Edward Goudge's magnificent plasterwork ceiling in the courtroom of Sessions House, Northampton. According to local tradition , if the prisoner ( or, presumably, a witness) told a lie, then the devil's tongue would start to wag.

 

The last two women to be hanged in England for witchcraft, Elinor Shaw and Mary Phillips, both of Oundle, were tried here in 1705. They at least are two people who may well have believed the story.

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Uploaded on September 15, 2015
Taken on September 11, 2015