Rädern

“The condemned person was wrapped in a raw, wet oxhide and dragged on a hurdle to the scaffold by a horse beforehand; on the way pieces of the offender's flesh might also be torn out with red-hot tongs; and after execution, the head was usually severed and put on top of a pole, as observed by Taylor, and the body tied to a cartwheel, placed horizontally on top of another pole, and similarly left to rot...” A great number were clustered together There was a prisoner to be broken upon the wheel Idle gazers did press to gape upon him Guilty of murdering his infant daughter with an axe Great multitudes flocked to the place of execution He came on foot with a priest And his executioners crossed the drawbridge Ascending a mount of earth That all may see the execution a mile round The hangmen take each a small halter Holding the prisoner upon his back Then the Arch-hangman The great Master of this mighty business Took up a prodigious wheel Lifting it by the spokes A mighty stroke beat the poor wretch's limbs into pieces Four main blows on his breast, Burst all his bulk and chest in shivers, Lastly he smote his neck, and burst his jaws to mammocks The broken mangled corpse, spread on the wheel A post thrust into the wheel, And fixed it to the earth, There the carcass lay to be consumed By ravening fowls