The Founding of the House of Vanois

(A family history written by the first Duke of Vanois)

Purse-slitting was a fine art. You slipped up behind the man, a short, razor sharp knife palmed in your fist. You spotted where the bag of coins hung from his belt -- no one had thought of putting pockets in pants yet -- and, when he was distracted, put a slice in the bottom of the bag. Then you grabbed the coins and kept moving. If all went smoothly, it might be hours before he realized his pouch was empty.

The girl didn't have the technique down. She waited for her victim to cheer the King as he passed, but then she picked one with too full a pouch, and the coins overflowed her hand. Others in the crowd grabbed her before the last gold Louis hit the cobblestones. A couple of the King's Archers came over to seize the prisoner.

Ordinarily, she could have looked forward to a swift and perfunctory trial before she paid the price of theft. But she had been caught red-handed in the presence of the King himself. A breach of the King's peace was summarily punishable by Henri himself, and he had ordered her to be hanged forthwith. He could not himself stay: there was a voyage to begin. The hangman knew it must be important. Louis had often remarked that he knew but four fine sights -- a priest at the altar, a soldier in the field, a beautiful woman in bed, and a thief on the gallows.

The hangman moved quickly. The two archers had finished binding her hands behind her back, and were ready to turn her over. He could see that she was young, maybe 18, probably still in her apprenticeship as a cutpurse. Long red hair and a pretty figure were nicely set off by a simple green dress. Her light skin was pale with shock. A few seconds before she had been on the verge of copping a fistful of gold: now she was gallows bait. She was still trying to babble out an explanation: someone else had slit the purse and then was frightened away, she had just tried to keep the man's gold from falling.

It might even have been true, he reflected, but that made no difference in the face of a royal command. "Let me have her," the hangman told the archers. Turning to her, he said simply, "You have had your trial, before the King himself. Let's get it over with." He slid the noose from his belt (you kept one ready when attending the King). It was just a slipknot in four feet of hemp, easy to carry and good enough for a criminal. At the sight of it the girl leapt back and gasped: only the archers holding her bound arms kept her in place.

"I pray thee ... not this," she begged.

A pretty young lass, barely beginning her life, pleading for its full span. In the fullness of time she might become a wife and a mother, and die decades from now in bed, surrounded by her descendants. Aye, the hangman thought, he had ended too many of those, but it was his job. That was not her fate: she would die today, spinning and squirming in anguish while dangling on public display, a proof of the King's justice.

The hangman slid the noose over her head; she struggled, but the archers held her firm. He got it in place, the knot snugged under her chin, her hair still inside its grasp; the details could be worked out at the gallows. "I've got her now, you can release her." The archers let go and the hangman worked through the crowd, already thinning out as it followed the King. He used the noose as a choke collar to pull her behind him. The members of the crowd opened a way for him. Many looked with pity toward his young victim, who was weeping and still trying to persuade them of her innocence.

Three blocks to the gallows, and he had to force her most of the way. With hands bound and the noose gripping her neck when she balked, she

had little choice, but she used what she had. The rope would tighten as she dug in her feet, then he would hear her pleading stop as the hemp cut off her breath, and a few seconds later the rope would go slack as she gave up and took some more stops, panting before she tried to stop again. The hangman kept going. There was no sense in being gentle about it. That just prolonged their fear. It also gave them more chance to talk, and he did not care to get friendly with someone he, in a few minutes, would have to turn off and leave dangling and strangling.

At the sight of the gallows she let out a scream and dug her heels into the cobblestones. The hangman just kept pulling; there was a wheezing noise and then her voice was silenced. Still she yanked at the rope like a fish on the line, finally falling face-down in the street. He turned around and faced her; she began gasping as the line went slack. She lay there, her green dress spread on the road, her head turned to the side, gasping and gagging through the folds of her hair. It was a rather thin dress, the hangman noted with interest. Then, grabbing her by the shoulders, he lifted her up. He spread the hair out of her face and slid it over her shoulders, and then pulled at the rope somewhat more gently. "Come, lass, there is no escaping. It must be done. You only prolong your fears and your pain by this."

"I will give you anything," she replied, "anything. I will give you what I never gave my lover. Anything, to escape dying this way." Tears ran down her cheeks and a bit of foam escaped her mouth as she panted.

It was a tempting offer. She was young and slender, and the light dress clung to her pale body. Still ... if anyone passed the gallows, and noticed it was missing its rightful occupant, the hangman himself would take their place. Louis called his hangman the "first servant of my Throne," and expected absolute loyalty.

"Let's get it done with," he replied, and a few moments (and struggles) later they were at the foot of the gallows. Now she fell to her knees, sobbing. Standing over her, the hangman shifted the knot to the back of her neck, and pulled the long red hair through it. Still keeping a grip on the rope, he made sure that the ladder was firmly positioned. They were ready. He stood her up and turned her around, with her back to him and the ladder.

It seemed strange, in a way. He was accustomed to working before immense crowds, and the square was entirely empty. The only ones who knew of the execution were those near the King, and they had gone off with the royal procession. Would it be harder or easier on her, he wondered? Was it easier to dangle without others watching your ignomy and disgrace, or harder to die without one sympathetic face in view?

He would never find out: she would be the only one who could say, and in a few moments her throat would be seized by the hemp, whose grip would not release while she lived.

He lifted her to her feet and she fell back against him. Just as well, he thought as he mounted the ladder for a few steps, keeping the rope as taut as he could without stopping her breath. Now came the tricky part. The first step, the point when they left the earth forever, was the hardest to coax.

Slowly he pulled the rope tighter. Her sobbing turned to a high squeak and then ceased. She yanked on the rope, twitching her head forward as hard as she could. Finally she had to have air, and stepped backward onto the first rung of the ladder. He'd done it. As the noose loosened, she gasped in the precious air. He let her have one breath and then pulled again. This time she could only hold out for a few seconds, and another rung passed under her.

It took a full minute, but the hangman was now high on the ladder, his shoulders above the crossbeam; the victim's head was between his feet. He hooked one arm over the beam to steady himself, and prepared for the final hoist.

He spread his knees and dragged her up between them. Her feet were between his; being shorter, her head was now just below his chin. He could feel her soft rump pressing against his loins, her heaving chest pressed his belly. And, he realized, he was hard as a rock. Well, he reflected, there is nothing wrong with liking your work.

He cinched the rope around the crossbeam, so that she would die in the traditional place, about a foot of hemp between her and the wooden beam. Glancing around the empty square, he stopped to take in the unusual sight. They were seeing the view from ten feet up. The experience was nothing new for him, but for his victims it was a strange sight, and he let them gaze for a few moments before beginning their last trial. He thought that it was probably easier to die alone, at least if you had to die this way. With a woman, the crowds could gape at her loins as her legs kicked and flew or, worse yet, snapped up. With a man, his erecting codling might push out of its cod-pouch, leaving the ladies to giggle as it finally sent his seed flying into the air together with his soul. And for either, there were the stains that told of bladder and bowels releasing in their body's last agony, the jeering crowds clapping out a dancing tune as the victim's legs jerked. No, alone would be better, less degrading. He would be the only witness, and he at least would not laugh or mock, but simply do his job.

Her hands tied, her neck already linked to the gallows, her feet perched unsteadily on the ladder rung, she was perfectly helpless now, ready for the slow dying to begin when the hangman chose. She found strange sensations building within her. She was no longer in control, but completely in his hands. The release from control was somehow attractive. Deprived of all choice, her body was free to dwell upon itself. She felt her breath coming faster and her head began to spin.

He flattened one of his legs against the ladder. One slight push and she would be spinning and kicking in the air. In the air, yet dying from inability to inhale one bit of it. He placed his hand on her shoulder and prepared to give that push. His palm would be her last contact with another person, her last contact with anything but the rope that was killing her.

Then he noticed it. Her sobbing had changed ... now it had a pattern. She would inhale, then stop as if holding her breath, then gasp it out and repeat. It was strange, not at all like the usual panicked gasping. As an experiment he tightened her grip on her shoulder, as if ready to push her off, and her breathing became even more forceful, and each exhalation became a faint moan. Her arms began to writhe; pressed as they were against his manhood, he noticed he was beginning to breathe a little more forcefully as well.

Glancing down her body from his vantage point, he was awestricken. Of her head he could see only the long red tresses and her white forehead; she was beginning to roll her head back and forth against his chest. But below that he could see her breasts heaving with each breath, the soft, pale flesh expanding within the green cloth. The pink of one nipple was barely visible above the green. And both it and its sister seemed ready to poke through the cloth. Her moaning became louder and she rolled her head on his chest in time. In her mind she was now drifting, the pleasure building up in waves, sweeping softly through her young body, filling every bit of it, yet even as the pleasure grew the desire for it grew yet more rapidly.

By now, he was so hard that he felt as if he would burst through the dress and his own pants as well. It was strange, he thought, the similarity of the beginning of life and of its end, of the ultimate pleasure and the ultimate anguish. Here they were pressed in close contact, her between his legs, the scent of her tresses in his nose, a contact nearly as intimate as .....

Then her entire body began to writhe. Each breath now ended with a passioned "E-e-e," each growing higher and louder, as if her body was straining to contain an explosion. Her shoulders moved back with each gasp, and he could see her belly heaving. Inside her loins she felt a warm glow, rising into fire, and she felt a strange warm moistness in her innermost feminity, a moistness that flowed downward, covering her soft lips as if preparing to welcome entry into the center of herself. She could not explain why she was crying out, and could have cared less.

"E-e-e... ungh, uh. E-e-e ... ung, uh." He slid down just a little, and found his membrem virile caught between her buttocks, swept back and forth as her hips moved. "E-e-e, UNGH, uh" Her body was now acting on its own. Her hips lifted upward as if called to the heavens, as if some force of spasmodic pleasure was trying to fly free. Almost without his consent his own hips began to move. As her shoulders pressed rhythmically into his chest he felt that rising sensation in his male glands which told him that his own moment was quickly approaching. "EEEE, UNGH, UH!" He took his hands from her shoulders and slid them around her, carefully stroking each breast. There was no one to see and he could not have cared less if the entire town were there. His stroking grew carried away and her dress slipped from her shoulders. Her pale breasts were now bare, but neither person noticed or cared.

She sucked in a lungful of air, held it for a long second. He felt her shoulders drive backward into him, her body arch forward on the ladder, and she let out one last "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Her hips thrust outward and her loins locked tight as the fiery pleasure exploded in her belly and spread outward in powerful surges through her stiffened body, heating it until it seemed as if her very bones would melt. He clutched her breasts firmly as at the same instant his own pleasure peaked, the muscles and glands in his loins seizing tightly in pleasure, changing to pulsing as his sensations, bursting outward with his seed, contained by his clothing rather than by her warm moistness. For an instant they were together on the gallows, two bodies pressed upward, both bodies seizing hard, pulsing together. Her last cry of pleasure changed to a long moan that surged louder and softer as her body jerked with the cycles of its joy and release.

Then it happened. In her ecstasy, her feet slipped from the rung and went through the ladder. Still contained by his legs, she slid straight downward on his body, dropping a few inches. Her moan gave way to a high-pitched wheeze and then was choked into silence. Her body still shivered as the last waves of pleasure ranged up and down. His body relaxed, spent, the pressure and shivering of her soft form adding to the completeness of his release.

Her ecstasy ended, and suddenly she awakened to the pain of the noose. Her feet jerked as he tried to pull them through the ladder and find footing again. The hangman awakened, too, and moved by reflex born of long practice. His hand left her breast, found her shoulder, and rolled her off the ladder.

It didn't quite work. One of her feet hooked the side of the ladder and she struggled to keep its grip and to pull the other foot back on. Unbalanced as she was, and hands bound behind her back, she had no chance, but with her need for air mounting toward pain she struggled for anything. The hangman bent down, pulled her foot free, and let it go. Now she was suspended by nothing but her neck. She swung away but on the return swing her feet again tried to grip the ladder. Her toes snagged it but then pulled free. By now the pleasure was fading, replaced by panic. The noose bit into her neck, squeezing it tighter than she could ever have imagined, driving her tongue upward into her mouth, sealing off the air. She awakened to the realization that she could not breathe, that she had already taken the last breath she would ever take, that she was helplessly danging between heaven and earth, unable to touch anything that would save her ... except perhaps the ladder.

The hangman descended a few rungs and grabbed her by the back and stomach, holding her free of the ladder. She could feel her feet swishing through the empty air, her lungs craving for a breath. He could feel her belly muscles tighten and heave, this time not in pleasure, but in an attempt to pull air past the noose's vicious squeeze. Her legs snapped up to her chest, enfolding his hand against her belly as he held her in the air.

He glanced upward. Her head was twisted to the side, her face half covered by her tresses. He could hear some gurgling which told him it was too far forward. She could feel some tiny movement of air in her chest ... perhaps just a little more, just one breath. Her eyes, clamped shut in suffering, opened a bit and looked at him as she grimaced. As her blue eyes met his, she seemed to be begging him to stop holding her away from the ladder, let her stand free again, let her inhale one more sweet breath of air. He shook his head no. "The best I can give you now is a quick death," he whispered sadly, then looked away. Her eyes closed again and her body began to shake in the beginning of her death agonies. The spasms became more and more violent. Her bare breasts quivered as her body shook and her chest heaved, striving to draw in a bit of air to allay the body's horrendous pain and desperation.

By now her lungs were burning, her chest jerking as she fought desperately for life. Her arms and legs ached as the muscles longed for oxygen. The pain was excruciating. Her legs jerked down, feet fully extending to the ground, and held there. Then they snapped up again and, after a few seconds, back down. Each move made her body pitch back and forth, but he steadied her. Her desperation, the mounting agony overwhelmed her mind and she began to lose control. She felt her legs beginning to jerk, without coordination, but with increasing speed and violence. A long dark spot on the front of her dress showed that in her distress her bladder had released. She could feel the release and the liquid spewing down, but in her agony no longer cared. He knew that she was now so far lost in suffering that he had nothing to worry about, and he let her go.

Now he could concern himself with easing her passing. As he climbed the ladder again he passed her body. She was now jeeking and vibrating violently, every muscle quivering as her legs spasmed and her chest heaved in futility. The dress had slid down a bit and one nipple, no longer erect, was fully visible. As she slowly spun he saw the noose biting the side of her neck, elongating it in a way it was never meant to stretch, the stretching tendons popping out of the skin, the veins pulsing as they tried to pump her blood past the merciless hempen grip. Tiny bubbles of foam slipped from her pink lips as bits of air, all too little to save her, slipped back and forth in her throat, and he heard a faint squeaking.

Above her, the hangman braced his arms on the beam and put one foot on her shoulder. It was just enough to steady her while he swung the other foot on her body. Then he released his full weight. The squeaking noise became a clicking ond and then stopped; her throat was sealed.

The last sight her eyes took in was the courtyard slowly rotating as she turned about, her green dress jerking as her body fought. Her hands twisted in their bonds, but could not pull free. Hands tied, neck squeezed, feet squirming in the air, she was completely helpless to influence her fate. Her anguish mounted and peaked: her last sensations were that of air swishing past her feet, of her neck twisting between his ankles. Then darkness ended her distress.

It did not end her body's struggles. The hangman could feel her body's fight through his feet. Her shoulders shook and heaved as her she fought in desperation, but with her throat tightly gripped, and his weight on her shoulders, her lungs were helpless. Beneath him he saw her red hair flying about as she thrashed, her pale breasts quivering with each powerful, desperate heave of her chest, a flurry of green as her legs flew about within her dress. For several minutes the hopeless struggle continued, as the noose remorselessly did its work. The hangman kept his station, like a spider perched above a fly.

Finally, her body stiffened. Now her legs and chest were simply vibrating; her muscles were starved of any air that would have given them more power. In a few moments, the hangman knew, she would be quivering in the last convulsive agonies of her death. He stepped back onto the ladder.

A group of townsmen passed by. From a distance, in the dim twilight, it looked as if she had already paid her price, and they shouted jests to the hangman about their having missed all the spectacle.

The hangman started: they had been just what he needed. Grabbing the rope just above her pale neck he swung her body onto the ladder. Her body quivered helplessly against his as he slashed the rope. One arm below her buttocks, another around her chest, and they slid down the ladder to the ground. She was warm in his arms, fully pressed against him, her head rolling back, wet gasping sounds in her open mouth, her pale breasts heaving beneath the green fabric, her whole body quivering and jerking against his.

The hangman got her body into his cart and snapped the reins. With the horse at a trot on cobblestones, the racket hid the sound of her gasping. More townsmen were visible, and they called jests as well; he took care to steer at a distance from them. He had what he wanted. A gallows with a fresh, severed, rope. People who, if anyone asked, had seen her lifeless body dangling as he prepared to take it down, and more who had seen her green dress as he drove her body to the paupers' mass grave outside the town. Yes, there were a dozen or more witnesses to the fact that the girl's young life had met its close on the rope.

He might be the King's first servant, but the hangman was still a bit of an outcast; his own home was outside the town ... on the way to the graveyard. This time he could stop short. It was hard getting her out of the cart. As the lifegiving air flooded back into her body, she was wracked with the same convulsions that the rope had wrenched from her. Finally he got her struggling body atop his shoulder and carried her inside. He put her down and, holding her on her side, cut the ropes that bound her hands. In his bed she continued the fight, legs kicking, arms clamped to her heaving chest, moaning as the air made its way back into her muscles. At length she lay still, breathing and moaning, still unconscious.

As he tidied her up -- no sense her awakening in clothing splattered with her urine -- the hangman made his plans. The King was always looking for servants in the smaller towns, where executioners' perks -- tips from a condemned looking for a quicker death, the victim's clothes, rings, and pocket money -- were smaller. Yes, a semi-retirement to a smaller town. A town where a certain red-haired lass would have no chance of being recognized again.

It was midnight before she awakened, and found herself in a warm bed instead of spinning above the pavement, warm compresses around her neck in place of a crushing ring of hemp.

Despite the pain in her throat, she could speak a few words.

"I had ... no idea ... it was like ... that."

"The pain?" he asked.

"And ... the pleasure."

The hangman smiled.

He was still smiling when the King's Archers crashed through the door, swords in hand.

I, the Royal Clerk Flaminbeau, do certify that the above is an authentic transcript of the account of the Royal Hangman and that, in accord with His Majesty's command, eight copies of this account were bound in red leather, one for His Majesty's bedchamber, one for that of Her Majesty the Queen, and six for the Royal mistresses.

The proceedings whereby the hangman was knighted as the Chevalier d'Vanois, and the cutpurse as Lady d'Vanois, upon the condition of their transmitting annually a written account of their deeds for the edification of His Majesty, is reflected in a separate roll.

 Your Majesty:

With this missive I report of another performance of our duties by myself and the Lady Vanois. I add in preface that we continue in the deepest gratitude to Your Majesty for having raised us to this station. Only last month I entertained a Swiss member of our calling, and he was deeply moved by the affection and favor shown us by Your Great Self. Indeed, he explained that in his nation the hangman, or should I say henker, is subject to all manner of oppression for doing his duty. Far from being appreciated, he is required to live outside the city walls, to sit in the last pew at church, and to avoid so much as brushing against the good citizens. I suggested that he relocate here, where our Gracious King considers those of our trade (dare I say art?) the First Servants of the Crown. But let me return to my tale.

The objects of our attention this day were a man and woman of their late 20s, both condemned as thieves. The magistrate privately suggested to me that the people of the town had a particular dislike for criminals of that type, and that I should make their deaths as humiliating as possible. I assured him that my lady and I could be depended upon.

In the morning, the prisoners were released to us. I bound the woman and my lady bound the man. We placed them in the cart, to be hauled away as if they were no more than refuse. They sat upon a plank thrust through the sides of the cart, and we tied them to it to ensure against flight.

As we approached the gallows, the crowd indeed reviled our victims. We could hear cries of "the noose in this world, hell in the next," "have a long dance, thieves," "stretch their necks, hangman," and the like. Our victims looked up at the gallows beam, about fifteen feet above the ground, and at the ladder resting on it, which they would shortly climb. The woman gasped, "it is so high!" She knew she would hang with her feet well above the crowd's heads, so that they would be looking up her dress as she spun and kicked. I replied "it's so you will have a better view!" The crowd within hearing laughed and cheered me.

We unlashed them from the plank and walked them to be base of the ladder. The woman's walk was shaky, and my lady had to steady her.

I turned the man so his back was to the ladder, and noosed him. With the rope firmly in hand I climbed the ladder, forcing him to follow me. When his head was close to the beam, I knotted the rope to it.

The man asked "let me finish my prayer," and the crowd began jeering that it was late to be getting religion. I loudly replied, "you can do that later," and shoved his shoulder, spinning him off the ladder. The crowd roared with appreciative laughter.

He spun around wildly at the end of his rope. His hands twisted as the rope strangled him. His legs flew in every direction as his body fought the agony of suffocation. The crowd laughed and began clapping in time with his kicking.

At length his body's swaying was reduced -- on this short a rope, it passes quickly -- and it moved only in response to his kicking. He tried to arch his back, his feet swinging backward, as he fought to suck air in. Then the kicking ended, he stomped downward, and his body became as straight and stiff as a board, all the muscles extending, his hands thrust straight out in front. I put a foot on his shoulder and gave him a slight push so that he rotated slowly.

As Your Majesty is aware, the peasant men cover their legs in tights, one for each leg, tied with strings at the waist. They cover their remaining nudity with a triangular breech clout of sorts, also tied at the waist. As he strangled, the bulge in his clout showed that his manhood was in its last erection. The women in the crowd laughed and jested. "He is well hung indeed!" "What's he going to do with it now?"

At that moment the clout, loosened by his kicking, fell free, and his hardened manhood stood in the open. The ladies grew silent, knowing what came next. And it did. As his stiffened body began its last shivering, he explosively spewed out his seed, spraying it with spurts in a circle. As is usual with a hanging, the last release of seed was almost superhuman, as if the body sought to resist death with its power of life. A woman shouted, "it's a bumper crop of mandrake this year, girls!"

Caught up with the spirit, I chanted to them

A man may cum when he cannot whistle
And shoot a load from his quivering pizzle

The crowd roared. I looked down at the female thief, so far beneath us. Her terrified gaze was fixed on her dying partner, and she looked as if she wondered whether I give her a similar shame.

The male thief's body stopped quivering then, and his hands came down from his chest. He was finished.

I returned to the ground, moved the ladder a few feet. My lady had already noosed the girl. "Your turn," I said, and put her back to the ladder. She dropped to her knees and threw up in terror.

We got her up again and I began to climb the ladder, towing her after me. It took time, since she resisted. I'd mount a stair, then haul on the rope. She'd feel her breath cut off, hold as long as she could, and then move her buttocks up one step to relieve the pressure on her neck. She was being hanged one step at a time, as foreplay to the final deed.

Finally I got her to the beam, and drew her up between my legs. As I tied the rope off her terrified shivering gave me the most delightful sensations. This time I did not spin her off at once. The crowd would get to watch her terrors for a time -- and I would get to feel her quivering. I could see over her shoulder as her breasts heaved with every breath, wondering if it would be her last. It was all in my hands, and she did not know the moment.

When she felt my hand on her shoulder she began to squeal, and the crowd hooted at her terror. Then I pushed and she was in the air.

She spun wildly. The noose had caught up beside her ear, terribly distorting and stretching her throat. Her hands clutched at the noose, leaving bloody tracks on her throat as she tried to get fingers under the tightening rope. He feet kicked in every direction, trying to find support, although her heels were eight or nine feet off the ground. She hooked one foot onto the ladder; I stepped down and pushed it off. then held her at a distance, waiting for the convulsions to begin.

They did. First her legs lifted up a bit and held there. Then they spread wide. Then they began scissoring at incredible speed. Her chest heaved, making her breasts bounce, but it could only make her wheeze a bit. Now the men of the crowd were appreciating the view as her skirt flipped about and her feet danced uncontrollably over their heads. Their eyes glittered at the sight.

The wheezing came faster as her convulsions became more violent. Her pelvis rocked forward and back as she kicked. I could see her face becoming a deeper blue as her agonies continued.

At last her legs rose up until the knees rested on her chest. The men were now treated to a sight of her full nudity as she quivered and swayed back and forth, saliva and foam flowing from the corner of her mouth. The men were transfixed, for she was a comely woman.

Again inspired, I called out

A lass may dance when she cannot sigh
And give us all a look at pussy and thigh

"Why, it's blue, too!" a man shouted, and the crowd laughed.

Now her legs went down and she moved in the opposite direction, arching her body backward with her heels rising up to her buttocks. The crowd had yet another view of her dying nakedness, and was appreciative.

I gave the crowd yet another thrill, calling out, "I forgot. The hangman has a right to a last kiss of forgiveness!" I chose to kiss her breasts, just as her chest heaved, which drew more laughter. The crowd was enjoying itself as she quivered in her final agonies.

At length, her legs sunk down a little, then jerked back up. The process repeated time after time as her body gave up its fight for life. Finally, she hung at length, the only sign of life being a heave of the chest, then another, and another. Then she, too, was done.

I had almost finished with the requested humiliation. I removed her dress -- my property as her hangman -- to leave her hanging in her shift, the blue flesh contrasting with the white cloth. She twitched a little as I did so, so perhaps some tiny bit of life remained even then, or perhaps even in dying she objected to the last indignity. They would left to hang until sunset, then cut down and carted off to paupers' graves.

hoping that this missive finds Your Majesty in good health, I remain your humble and obedient servant.

 I write Your Majesty in some embarassment. Indeed, nothing could move me to place hand to paper, save for the duty Your Majesty's father (may he rest in peace!) placed upon my own parents (may they rest so also!) when he ennobled our house and raised us above the rabble. Pursuant to that duty, to report on any exceptional execution of the law (and in particular, any exceptionally stirring execution of the law), I submit this missive.

I am embarassed only in that I must report a misadventure which, I hasten to assure Your Majesty, is not typical of my craft. My family has always taken pride in their work enforcing Your righteous decrees, and sought to carry out their duties with a sense of professionalism and skill. Unfortunately, even skill does not guarantee against fate. Dame Fortune is indeed a lady, and she shows or withdraws her favors at her whim.

On the 13th inst. I was summoned by the magistrates to carry out the sentence of death upon three persons convicted of clipping Your Majesty's coinage. Two were mother and daughter, the third was the mother's lover. I made the customary preparations, procuring coffins and the best rope, and lubricating the rope to ensure that it slid with ease. The gallows were of the older kind, meant for use with ladders, and perhaps twelve feet high. As it would be too high for me to reach from the cart, I hired a local lad as an assistant.

I visited the jail that night to prepare the victims for their ordeal. Mother and daughter were a comely pair, pale of complexion, somewhat taller than average, with jet black hair. I would estimate the mother to be in her mid forties, the daughter perhaps half that. The mother's lover was in the next cell. The daughter spent most of the time weeping, with her face in her mother's lap. The mother was more composed, although she too would break into tears from time to time. The lover seemed calm, even defiant, as I instructed them. Yes, it would be painful, but I would try to speed that as much as I could, and it would be over in minutes. Hair must be done up, best of all in a bonnet, to leave the throat clear so I could work quickly. Their legs might be uncertain when the time came, so they should sit until each was ready for the rope, and I would try to make it as fast as possible after that.

I arose before dawn and drove my cart to the jail. The magistrate was already there, and the victims' chains were being removed by a blacksmith. All were dressed in the best clothing they had. The mother wore a light blue dress, the daughter one of white cloth with much lace. Both had bustles and a pleasing exposure of pale cleavage. Like most victims, they desired to be as attractive as possible for their departure. They had heeded my counsel and their hair was done up in a bun, the mother's secured by a cap.

The weeping began again when I bound their hands. I followed my usual custom of binding them in front, so that they felt less helpless, but with the hands crossed at the wrist, so that they could do little to resist. I slipped a noose about the mother's neck and asked her to raise her hands. Then I wound the remaining rope, eight feet of stout hemp, around her waist. By the end she had broken down and was weeping. The daughter suddenly sat on the ground, back of her hands to her face, and wept uncontrollably. We had to lift her to her feet and hold her hands down to noose her. At that, she tried to hold her chin low. I had to slip the noose about her neck and force her chin up with my hand, then snug the rope in place before releasing my grip. I noticed that her pale, soft skin made a splendid contrast with the green coarseness of the hemp. The lover stood resolute, and was likewise noosed. We were ready to begin.

We helped them into the cart. I felt my own passions rising as I grasped the two ladies about the waist to lift them up. I could feel each shivering as I lifted. The three were seated upon their coffins and I took the reins.

When we turned the corner and the gallows came into view the weeping behind me rose in volume, and the daughter began to cry out in near hysteria. It had finally struck her that this was indeed her last journey, that in a few minutes she would be dangling and kicking from that very beam. After five or ten minutes of this we arrived at the hill, and the sheriff's men pushed back the crowd to allow us to enter. We could hear every possible emotion from the crowd. Some were muttering in sympathy, concerned that such attractive women were to end their days. Others were catcalling and hooting, asking how well they danced and whether they might show a little leg today.

As I pulled up beneath the beam, the daughter became hysterical. She stared at the beam and screamed "NO! NO! THIS CAN'T BE!" I stopped the horse, and it was time to begin to work quickly. My assistant was an amateur; he was still on the ground. I gestured for him to get up the ladder and into place. He sat astraddle the beam and humped himself over into position.

The lover would be prepared first, I called to him. I moved the felon to the center of the cart, right over the wheels, where rocking would not affect the rope's tightness, unwound the rope from his waist and handed it up. He started to tie it off and I had to hiss to make it tighter. You cannot tolerate slack with a cart; too much opportunity for a panicking victim to grab the noose and pull it loose. Finally he drew it up properly. Not so tight as to cut off breathing (yet), but not a bit of slack beyond that. The lover was not panicking, but one could tell from his pale face and shivering that he was controlling himself with difficulty.

Next came the mother. I helped her to stand. She was having difficulty and staggered a bit. I had to stand behind her and hold her with one hand as I passed the rope up. It was quite stimulating to be pressed against her; she shivered and her breath came in short, terrified gasps, not unlike those some lasses give at more pleasurable moments. I had to instruct my assistant to tie the rope off with no slack. When the noose was properly tightened her entire body gave way to a spasm of shivering and her breath turned to short moans of fear. She was now completely at the mercy of the rope, her hands bound and her neck tied to the beam, and she knew that only seconds remained before her suffering would begin.

I stepped over to the daughter, and as I did so the mother slumped down. The noose tightened, her breath became a squeak and she straightened up hastily. I could hear her faintly moaning "please, please, please."

The daughter would not stand. I told her she must, that she was merely prolonging her ordeal, but she was weeping madly and merely nodded her head no. The sheriff mounted the cart and we each took an arm and lifted her to her feet. I handed the rope up. I had to stop my assistant again; he was going to tie it to the beam so close to the mother's rope that the two would be kicking each other, a most unseemly spectacle. He moved it over a couple of feet so that each would dangle separately. At last we were ready.

I turned them all to face the front of the cart, so that the nooses would grab properly and seat at the back of their necks. Then I dismounted. Now there were only seconds to go before they would be swinging free. As I passed the side of the cart I saw the mother slump down again. She hung there, partially suspended, with her knees buckled under her, her breath again subsiding into wheezes and squeaking noises, as her terror-weakened legs scuffled and she tried to stand. In her panic, and unable to use her arms for balance, she was not successful, but thrashed about like a fish on a line, her legs scuffling and her body heaving as she tried to release the noose's grip. There was no sense righting her now; soon she would have nothing to stand on. By her side, the lover was visibly shivering, eyes clamped shut. A wet spot running down his trousers told how far he was lost in fear. On the other side, the daughter was still in hysterics, again crying "This can't be! Please!"

I drew the horse forward. He put his shoulder into the harness and the car lurched forward a foot. The mother and lover lost their footing and fell backward, the rope tight about their necks, their heels dragging on the cart. The daughter ... this, Your Majesty, is the source of my embarassment. The daughter turned, in her fright trying to keep up with the movement of the cart, and now facing its rear.

The horse took a full step, and the cart rolled two or three feet. Since carts of course are lower at the rear than at the front, the felons were closer to suspension. The mother and lover's heels were still dragging. Their hands snapped up to their chests as the rope bit into their necks. The daughter, though, was still stepping toward the rear. She went up onto her toes -- and the noose pulled around to the front of her neck!

The horse finally had the cart in full motion, and it slid out from under the three sufferers. I stopped and stepped back to appraise beginning of the execution, which in my experience is the key to the rest. The ropes had at least been kept taut, so they were swinging in narrow arcs, perhaps four feet on either side of the beam. All were experiencing the first anguish of their condemnation. The burning pain of the rope, the painful wrenching of the neck. The knowledge that they were fully conscious, helpless to breathe, that their pain would mount into agony as their bodies burned for air, that nothing would stop the ever-mounting pain, that their last sensation in life would be that agony. And most of all, the helplessness as their feet swung a short distance above the earth, their hands bound, their necks bearing their full weight, all who stood by refusing to aid.

The first to swing back was the mother. Her hanging looked to be going splendidly. The knot was securely at the back. Her head was bent forward, her hands clenched and held to her chest. Her lower legs kicked back once, giving her a bit of a wobble as she swung toward me and causing her blue gown to shimmer. She was grimmacing in pain from the bite of the rope, her fingers trying to lessen it.

The noose had not caught perfectly at the back of the neck, and was lower than I like it, but there was no sound of breathing, though her chest strove mightily to inhale, heaving again and again with force that made her nipples visible through her gown. Her fingers writhed in anguish as she rotated helplessly. Her legs squirmed, clamped tightly together, and then one twitched. The force made her body pivot on the noose, head to one side, body swinging to the other. Her toes swung through the air, reaching for the soil beneath them. She was in pain, but with her air cut off by the hemp, she would pass quickly, a few minutes of agony and struggle.

Next came the lover. He was also grimmacing, his body rigid and bent a bit backward. He would take longer, the men always do, but was also perfectly hung. The knot was seated at the back of his neck, his full weight upon his windpipe. He likewise fought for breath with no avail.

Finally came the daughter. And with her, my disgrace.

She was rotating rapidly -- one foot had come off the cart a little before the other -- and she was fighting. Her hands twisted in their bonds. Her feet flew out in every direction as she searched for a foothold, somewhere, as she swung a yard off the earth. The knot was just to the right of her chin, her head was flung back, and her neck seemed elongated and twisted to an impossible degree. I could hear her gasping and wheezing, fighting to move the air into and out of her lungs.

They swung away and then came back. Now the mother's body was straight; her toes stretched toward the ground and her shoes hung loose from her toes. As she swung back I noticed how stiff her body was; there was no sway to the legs or feet, as a limp body would have had, just pale feet stretched rigidly below the blue dress. Her hands were still clutched on her chest, and the fingers writhed in pain. The noose was doing its work, squeezing the life out of her helpless body.

The felon was hanging much the same, although I saw that his legs were beginning to jerk. The daughter was another matter. Her feet were flying out wildly. One caught the gallows post and increased her spin. Her hands wrenched and twisted, reaching out as if seeking to grab the post; with her head thrown back by the noose she could not see where it was, of course. Her hair had loosened and some swayed back and forth as she passed through the air.

Her chest heaved powerfully, fighting to pull in the air she needed. It would never be enough -- just sufficient to prolong her agony. From her throat came gasping, groaning sounds. Worst of all, in the midst of the groans her voice could be made out, gagging out frantically "down, down, cumme down!"

She swung away, feet still flying about in search of support, anything to take the appalling strain off her neck. On the next return, she missed the post but hit her mother with a knee and sent her spinning. The mother's legs were beginning to jerk slightly, pulling up a few inches and then thrusting down. The contortion of her face told me that she was still conscious and her lungs were beginning to burn, her limbs beginning to ache. I had no great worries about her; she would die in no more than the usual agony, which could not be avoided. It would be terrible for her, but her passage would end after some minutes of it.

The daughter was another case. She had worked the rope around her wrists loose enough to where she could turn one hand around and clutch at the noose, trying to reduce the limited grip it had on her windpipe. It was hopeless of course; a few fingertips could not offset her body's weight, and where the noose did have a grip it was a tight one, with the rope mostly buried in the flesh of her neck. Her struggling seemed to tighten the noose a bit; with one last groan of "down," her voice stopped and she devoted her entire effort to a frantic struggle to breathe, her chest heaving and loud wheezes coming from her throat. Bubbling saliva came foaming from her mouth.

Some of the crowd were talking about it, using words like "torture," and some unkind references to myself and my ancestors. Others were shouting angrily that I should do something.

If it had been in the good old days of the ladder, I would have mounted the beam, placed my feet on her shoulders, and speeded her passing by adding my weight to hers. Or I could have grabbed her ankles and pulled. But with the cart and these high gallows, her shoulders were full six or seven feet from the beam, and her feet barely a yard off the ground.

She swung back again. The wheezing moans and were becoming more rapid, the heaving of her chest faster and shallower, as her air supply fell and her body began to lose control. I rushed over, grasped her hips and reduced her swing, carefully staying behind her where her kicking was less of a risk. I locked my arms around her waist and pulled downward on her hips as best I could. It did a little good. The knot must have slipped tighter, because she no longer moaned; she needed every bit of air to stave off the agony that was slowly engulfing her. The only sound was now rapid wheezing, together with a rising gurgle as her saliva clogged what remained of her airway. Holding her like that, I could feel her body stiffen and seize. For a moment she arched backward, her stomach tightening, her calves hooking between my thighs as I pulled with all my might. Seized into this position, her body began to twitch over its entire span. Her hands snapped down and her fingers pinched my arms in an attempt to make me let go.

I let go, then leaped as high as I could and hooked my fingers over her shoulders. Now my full weight was added to hers. I thought I heard stretching, straining noises from her neck, although it might as easily have been from the rope. I hung to her like a spider gripping a fly. Her body continued to shudder as her aching muscles responded. Her breathing went from wheezes to clicking noises as air burst past the noose's grip, and then to a peculiar squeak, a sound like "eep! eep!" Then she began to kick and stomp wildly, her body jerking completely out of control.

That would have to suffice; her noose was set as well as it would ever be, and her weight would be enough to keep it from relaxing its grip. I let go. Now she could die alone in the air.

I fell back, and had a chance to check the other two victims. The mother was dying in the usual manner. Her face had relaxed, and I could hope she was unconscious as her body fought the rope. She was now decidedly out of air, and her body was frantically reacting to its lack. Her legs were scissoring back and forth, her bound hands snapping up and down. The blue dress made an elaborate contrast with her white shift as her ankles flew about. Her face was pale, turning faintly blue, and partially hidden by her loosened black hair. Her chest and belly heaved powerfully, trying to suck in air. It was of course hopeless. A hundred pounds or more was clamping her windpipe as she danced the dance of death.

A yard away her lover was doing the same dance. His legs were stomping up and down instead of scissoring, and his hands opened and closed as he held them at mid-chest level. All appeared to be going well. It was an agonizing death, of course, and a degrading one, but that was part of the work. Fewer will offend our laws if they know that a degrading death awaits them. One can retain some dignity while being beheaded, but none while dangling, kicking in agony. I may hope that some in the witnessing crowd resolved that day never to engage in cutting coins.

The crowd was now appeased, and were getting into a proper spirit, shouting "a nice jig!" "now for a breath of fresh air," and "loosen your collar a bit!" Others joined in with speculation about whether the women had thrashed about like this when in bed.

By now, the mother's thrashing was truly frantic, as her body fought its painful fate and her muscles responded to the burning pain of breathlessness. Her arms were jerking as best they could, her legs jerking back and forth, her chest heaving in rapid but useless spasms. Her pelvis swung to one side and then the other, making her wobble about as she hanged. Remarks about whether she had been like this with her lover began to multiply. Her struggles mounted in speed and violence as she slowly turned round and round and the crowd hooted at her movements. Soon her legs were scissoring so rapidly that they seemed a blur, as the noose squeezed the life out of her. "Is she dying, or coming?" someone shouted, and ribald laughter followed. I thought I saw her eyes peep open with a look of reproach at the crowd which was mocking her agonized struggles, so perhaps she was not unconscious after all.

Next to her the daughter suddenly stopped kicking as all her muscles locked up and she stretched out rigidly in the air, trembling as her muscles quivered, but no longer kicking. Only the trembling and the rapid, shallow, squeaking from her mouth showed that she still lived and fought for air. I could hope that she would pass quickly, but knew in my heart that her struggles were far from over. Doubtless she begged for the oblivion of death, but it would not be this easy. There were still considerable agonies to experience, and they would worsen by the second. Each second would seem like an hour to her, as time stretched out under the impetus of her pain. One minute without air -- who could stand it? Two or three or five? Her entire body must have been a mass of agony at this point, and she knew it would not stop but only worsen by the moment. The aching muscles of her legs were themselves refusing to obey. In her mind, each second slowly ground away, giving way only to more pain and hopelessness.

Her fingers slid down from the noose and instead clutched her bodice in helpless anguish. Then her hands suddenly pulled downward, ripping the bodice away. It hung in lacy shreds from her right hand and then fell as the fingers, too, began to spasm. Most of her breasts were visible now, their pale white darkening with blue. Her chest was in continual heaving now and their softness quivered before us all. The crowd grew silent, transfixed by the sight. One who cried "show us more!" was quickly silenced by angry gestures. She hung there, slowly turning, quivering in every muscle, her breasts shaking as the sound of "eep, eep, eep" burbled from her mouth, her long hair now loose and flowing down her back. Urine flowed from the front hem of her dress as she, like her mother, lost control even of that function in her helplessness.

Then her legs snapped up to her chest and held there. Her dress rode up with them. The view of her quivering boobies was replaced by one of still more intimate regions, displayed to all as she rotated, still quivering violently. If I may speak to Your Majesty as man to man, I felt my own body reacting, my manhood straining at my clothing, but knew that my embarassment would be masked by the fact that every man present was feeling the same sensations and none, in any event, were looking at me. The daughter was, well, let us say that the forest of her nether regions was not so thick as some, and we could see the cleft of her femininity as she turned.... but now I must leave off, lest I grow too distracted to write. I leave the rest to Your Majesty's imagination. I do recall that her thighs, too, were bluing as they shook and spasmed, although I was too warmed by the sights to recall the hues of her virginal canyon of bliss.

She hung there rotating for what seemed like an hour, and probably seemed like days to her, agonized as she was, air at her lips, yet with the rope's burning grip sealing it from her lungs. I cannot judge the real time -- half a minute? A quarter? She rotated perhaps four turns. I cannot judge it by her attempts to breath, for now the squeaking sounds were continuous and the chest heaving so rapidly that it seemed one continuous shuddering as she rotated with her intimate charms on display for all, hidden occasionally when her feet spasmed and shook, pointing at the ground.

Next to her, her mother was in the last convulsive agonies of death. She hung almost limp, her legs and feet twitching weakly as the muscles faded away. She reminded me of a puppet now, face bent forward, hands hanging down. Her lover still fought -- the men always last longer, I have noted -- but he, too, was slowing down.

The daughter's legs were now lowering by stages. They sunk down a few inches from her chest and held there, shivering, her feet twitching up and down. Then a few inches more. The noose's grip was squeezing the last bits of life from her young body. Finally they hung nearly limp. The squeaking from her throat subsided into gurgling as her ankles jerked back and forth.

It was almost done. The three hung helplessly as death took them. The mother's chest heaved twice more, and she was still. The lover's legs quivered for a bit, then stopped. Another last heave of his chest, and he stopped moving. The daughter alone moved, her lower legs snapping up against her thighs. Her breasts were now quite blue, one brown nipple excepted, the other still hidden by the white cloth. She made a last gurgling attempt to inhale, then let it out with a long moan. Her legs sank down, stopping as before, the muscles spasming as they gave up the battle for life. Her chest quivered, shaking her breasts, and then she was quiet. A pulsing in her neck -- for the arteries were well stretched and visible -- told that her heart was beating at a superhuman pace as it strove to keep off death even after the rest of her body had surrendered. After a minute or two the pulsing slowed and then halted. Her struggles were indeed finished.

The crowd stayed for a few minutes as the three hung. The mother's hair framed her face, now relaxed in death. The lover rotated slowly as his seed began to dry. The daughter, her head thrown back, hung with her mouth partially open, foam trickling from one corner. Their limp feet traced circles in the air a couple of feet above the ground they had longed to reach. The judgment of the law had been carried out.

I gave them another half hour to be certain, and then commenced the final degredation. As Your Majesty knows, the outer clothing of the condemned is the privilege of their executioner. I placed the ladder between daughter and mother and cut their hands free. Their arms now hung straight down, hands open, only the red streaks about the wrists to show where the rope had bound them and they had struggled to twist their hands free. Droplets of blood in their palms showed where they had driven their fingernails in during their agonies.

I removed the daughter's dress, unbottoning its back and slipping it from her shoulders as she dangled, leaving her clad in nothing but her undergarments. She looked different now, the width of her bustles and dress was replaced by a slender image. She hung almost bare, slowly rotating, her long legs no longer dancing but pointing to the ground she had been unable to reach.

She had a necklace, and I unfastened it from her neck, guiding it past the red streak on her neck where the noose had cut its deadly groove, and lifting it from a bit of drying foam which had trickled from her lips. The foam had a pink tinge, which stood out against her pale, blue, neck. The damage her dying hands had done to the dress would be easily repaired.

Next came the mother's gown; she was left in the same state, hanging limp in her slip, her face tilted helplessly forward, but relaxed from its agony. I saw the tiny pink spots which mark a hanging victim's face.

Finally, the lover's pants, which would need the laundry before I could sell them. Some giggles behind me told that some of the ladies had waited for that moment, as he hung there, his manhood in (dare I say) vigor mortis, a red cap atop a blue shaft.

As I placed the clothing in the cart, I paused for a moment to watch the three bodies, largely undressed, rotating slowly before what remained of the witnesses.

Three felons, turned by the law into marionettes dangling as if the puppeteer had tired and gone home. Then I began to back the cart and the coffins under them. My day was almost done.

 Your Majesty,

In the manner of my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, I have the honor to report to Your Illustrious Self a most unusual occurrence in Vanois. And, with this report, to convey my gratitude for an exceptional favor You have granted my House, exceeding all prior grants and beneficies.

My professional attentions had been directed to a pair of felons who were held incarcerated pending the extreme penalty of the law. One was male and one female, and they had been taken in some manner of petty thefts, the details of which would only bore and distract one of your eminence.

I met them, as is my custom, the day before they were to die, to ensure that they knew what lay ahead of them and how they should behave.

My discussions with the man were of the usual sort. What transpired in the lady's cell was more unusual. Upon entering, I was immediately struck with her countenance. She was somewhat above middle height, slender and petite, with blue eyes and blond hair that flowed down to her breasts. Her face and manner ... suffice it to say, Your Majesty, that upon certain occasions one meets a lady so perfectly suited to whatever one desires, dare I say the platonic ideal of womanhood, that ... oh, I fear I am flaunting my education here, of which I am all too proud, few hangmen having read the Greeks, even in translation. Suffice it to say that it was the event described without invocation of the plump thinker Plato as love at first sight. Her eyes mezmerized me; they seemed to draw me in, filled with gentleness and empathy. Her speech enchanted me. And this was the divine creature I must kill in the morning!

She seemed nervous, even embarassed. This is of course common when a lady meets her executioner, who will in the morning guide her over the awful (and often immodest) threshold between life and death. Then she confided her secret. She had, in truth, since childhood found the prospect of hanging one that aroused her most passionate desires. For many years, she had toyed with it, not to mention herself, and found in it great pleasure.

I prized every moment with her, and thus prolonged the conversation for an hour, seeking the origin of her enjoyment, which so perfectly matched mine own. She could not define it precisely. Perhaps it was the thrill of danger and agony, which arouses and heightens all other feelings in the same manner that spice can enliven otherwise bland meats. Perhaps it was the feeling of isolation (for she commonly bound her eyes) which enabled her to achieve a rare and perfect focus upon her own body, isolated from all distraction (for, she told me, at these moments she was aware of her body, of every tiny draft upon it, in a way she never achieved otherwise. Perhaps the deprivation of air played some intoxicating role. Or perhaps the helplessness was appealing; if she felt guilt about pleasure, as so many do, the helplessness of bondage, of pleasure applied by inanimate bonds, released her from any responsibility and guilt. Whatever it was, the pleasure she secured thereby exceeded all imaginable bounds.

It goes without saying that promised her that I would do my best to ensure that she passed from this world in those pleasures. She asked that I take my time in the preparations. As a woman, she was not so hasty as we men might be in carrying pleasures of the flesh to their conclusion, and the preparation must be as prolonged and slow as possible. I of course agreed in an instant.

The next morning I attended to the condemned. First I bound the man. Then I proceeded to the object of my desires.

In accord with her wishes, I took exceptional care in the preparation. I removed her shackles and directed her to place her hands behind her back. She submitted and I bound her wrists, taking my time. Then I bound her at the elbows, tightening them just sufficiently to contain her. Her petite and esquisite breasts were pushed forward as I took up the slack.

She was beginning to breathe rapidly, and if I may say so, I was beginning to sweat. I took the liberty of showing her one special preparation I had made. Her young neck would not be desecrated by the usual coarse hemp, but squeezed by a rope I had made from the silk drapery bindings at my chateau. It would be far more gentle, a refinement fit for a lady, and its slippery nature would ensure that it bound her the more tightly when she was suspended. There would be no slow, gasping, death here. It was the last gift I could give her, save one. She looked me in the face, tears of gratitude in her eyes, and whispered "thank you."

I escorted her and the man to the gallows. The crowd was but a dozen; this is a small town, and it was harvest season, so most were busy. We mounted the steps, and then I positioned them carefully on the trap.

As Your Majesty knows, the gallows here are mine own invention, created both for efficency and for pleasure, after long experiment and thought. In the center of the floor is a double trap, each half swinging to the outside. The area below the floor, above six feet in height, is entirely enclosed, permitting me to be alone within it. The trap is secured by a a post which I can remove, when below, with the tug of a rope.

I positioned each of their feet on the center line. Then I quickly noosed the man and tied the rope to the beam. I took much more care with the lady, gently slipping the nose over her head, lifting her hair through it, letting her feel the silk caress rather than scratch her soft flesh. I knotted it like the other, to allow her to drop knee deep below the floor. That and the silk should seal her throat in an instant. By now she was trying to conceal her panting. Finally, I slowly tied the blindfold about her eyes, sealing her off from the world. All distractions were removed; she was alone with and in her so beautiful body.

I stepped to one side and read the death warrants, the orders to me from Your Majesty's judges that the two be taken to the customary place of execution and hanged by the neck until dead. I read as slowly as I could.

I made the mistake of glancing at her while I read, and became too choked up to continue. She cut a stunning figure there, a slender form with long legs, securely bound, her neck fastened to the beam, the noose that would kill her encircling her pale throat. Completely helpless, she trembled, from fear, passion, or both. Her breathing was causing her beautiful breasts to heave within their cloth confines. The wind lofted her hair a bit, the red silk contrasted with the paleness of her neck. I finished and stepped forward to take the hangman's prerogative, the kiss of forgiveness. It was long, slow, and moist, as I gently held her body against mine.

I went down the steps into the interior of the gallows.

Here I was temporarily in darkness, the only light being that penetrating between the boards and the gap between the halves of the trap. Overhead I heard her breathing, panting, a faint moan of pleasure or groan of terror, I could not tell. I took a grip on the rope and stepped back out of the way of the trap.

I gave the rope a hearty tug, and the post came away. The traps sprung to the sides, and as the light flashed through the opening I saw the legs of the condemned drop suddenly into sight. I stepped over to her. Her feet hung, toes down, at height of my chest.

I could see that the silk had functioned perfectly. Her head was pitched forward toward me, her hair falling across her breasts. Not a trace of breath could be heard; the slippery noose had sealed her throat as perfectly and as gently as could be done. Invisible to the onlookers, I lifted her dress to her knees and extended my right hand under it, while my left held one leg.

My hand lightly traced the skin of her thighs as it slowly rose upward. I may assure Your Majesty that other things were rising upward, too, and not slowly! I could feel the smoothness of her flesh, the softness of the down-like hair. As I neared my object I could feel her thighs moistened with the dew of extraordinary passion, which must have spread there while she stood awaiting the drop. I parted her lips and placed my fingers within the warm cleft of her womanhood, parting the warm petals of her flower, and then began to move my fingers back and forth.

She responded to my carress with a jerk of her body. I moved more rapidly, questing upward toward the soft ridge that marked the center of her pleasure. When I felt that, I began a gentle massage from side to side. She jerked again. My hand was now covered in her woman's dew. I continued with the massage as she began to jerk her hips from side to side. Only my steadying hand kept her from swaying from one side of the trap to the other as the jerking of her hips accelerated. I could see her belly jerking as well, its muscles twitching in tune to her rising pleasure.

Then her feet swung back, her hips forward. I felt her thighs clamp my hand, her muscles tighten. I continued my caress, now with fingers only, pressing her body back as it hung. She held there for some time; I was too absorbed to tell Your Majesty how long it was, for at the time it seemed an eternity and a few moments later seemed so brief. Then her legs lowered and relaxed. They jerked back again, held for a few moments, and then relaxed and went limp. She had experienced her last such pleasure. Her legs were beginning to tremble from another force. I still kept up the caresses, hoping to prolong her joy for as long as was humanly possible, perhaps even make it her last conscious memory of this life.

Looking up, I could see her breasts above me and, beyond that, her face. Her breasts were beginning to thrust outward as her lungs fought for air. Her mouth puckered as she desperately tried to pull in the air of life, but the noose was strangling that from her lungs.

Suddenly she kicked spasmodically, striking me in the chest. Yes, it was time to be gone and let her life end. I withdrew my hand, quickly running it one last time down her thigh in a final caress.

Her jerking quickly went into the throes of death. Her legs kicked back and forth as she slowly rotated on the silk, and her arms twisted in their bonds. One shoe and then the other went flying as she fought. It was as much as I could take to watch her dying slowly, her beautiful slender form convulsing, as it twisted helplessly. I looked to my hand and sadly reflected that the women whose passion had moistened it was in dying in anguish within my view. A few more minutes of agony as the noose dragged the life out of her body, and it would be done. I mounted back atop the scaffold to watch the finish.

Her struggles left her swinging back and forth in a wobbling circular course. On occasion her heels or toes struck the traps as she flailed about. At least her face had relaxed, telling me that she had by now slipped into unconsciousness. From here on it was simply the struggles of a body that felt life being torn away from it. Beyond her, the man was dying, hard, but to him I gave little thought.

I was startled by cries from the crowd. A horseman was among them, and they and he were shouting "Pardon" at me. "For who?" I cried back as I mounted the steps. "Antoinette, the girl. Get her down, and quickly!"

He did not need to coax me! But my gallows were built to string victims up, not to easily get them down. Seconds counted. I leaned over, grabbed the silk, and pulled it toward me. Getting as firm a grip as I could, I slashed it apart. The girl's weight nearly pulled me into the trap, but I kept my footing and lowered her down until her feet reached the floor below, then released the silk.

Echewing the stairs, I leaped into the trap opening. I could hear her beginning to suck air past the knot. I pulled it from about her neck, and she took a full breath, expelled it, and took another in a terrible groan. She still lived! I spread a blanket that I had left in there and placed her upon it.

Then she began to twitch over her entire body. Soon she thrashed about like a beached fish as the life flowed back into her body. I rolled her over and cut her bonds to make breathing easier. She continued to fight, her heels drumming against the floor and her arms pulled up tight, her clenched hands pressed against her chest, her perfect breasts swelling with each inhalation. At length her struggles stopped, and her breathing slowed to normal.

I stood transfixed at her beauty there, knot still about the neck, her initimate regions yet warm and moist with passion.

Her eyes opened, and she asked me "Am I alive? What happened?" I answered with a deep kiss and our lips melted together. I felt her arms wrap around me, and then her legs.

May I have the honor, when next at court, of introducing your Celestial Self to Antionette, Fourth Lady of Vanois?

 Based on a true event in 18th century France:

       Marie-Catherine Lescombat had spent the night in weeping and prayer, begging forgiveness. The young hangman had visited the night before, “so that I will not come as a stranger,” as he put it. He bore word that she would go to the gallows at 10 A.M.. Holding her hands, he gave her instruction. She should keep her hair as it was, baring his neck. He would permit her to ride in a carriage rather than be hauled in his cart. Her family could bring a coffin, so that she could be properly buried, not cast into the paupers’ pit. She could wear a veil to shield her face from the leering crowd.

These were special privileges; being one of the most beautiful ladies of Paris, and having an 18 year old hangman, had its advantages. She had shown him a special favor in return; he could forever boast that he was Mme Lescombat’s last lover, the last to nuzzle her jet-black hair or kiss her pale bosom, or lie between the legs that tomorrow would kick in agony.

As they lay together afterward, his hand slowly stroking her glowing form, she summoned up her courage and, in a quivering voice, asked “how … how long will it take, tomorrow?” He caressed her throat before replying. “I have no experience with women. Your neck is dainty, not like that of the men I have hanged. I would imagine it would be quick, four or five minutes. I will try to make it quick.”

She had been haunted by the thought all night. Four or five minutes without air. Every second would be one of mounting, convulsive agony. She had seen hangings. How much agony did it take to make a man convulse uncontrollably? And that came on in the first seconds. How much worse did it get after that? She thought of the men kicking  and dancing, erecting and cumming… how much agony were they experiencing for their bodies to become so unconstrollable?

Five minutes … three hundred seconds, until the unbearable hunger for air ended in the blackness of death, and she hung limp like a marionette after the show was done.

At last she fell asleep. She was startled awake by the sound of a key in the cell door. Four guards, their faces grim, entered.  She was barely on her feet before two guards grabbed her arms and put them behind her back. In panic, she began to struggle, but there was no opposing their strength. Another jailer bound her wrists. She had just sense enough to gasp out, “My veil! Put it over my head. The hangman approves.”

Outside, the morning sun was blinding. They bundled her into the carriage; her hands bound, hoop skirt making her clumsy, she needed assistance. The guards admired her splendid ankles as they helped her up the steps.

The horses’ hooves rang out as they traveled the cobblestone streets. She felt the carriage halt, and the cry of gendarmes as they forced a path through the crowd. Then it began again to move. They must be close to the gallows. Each breath, once so trivial a thing, was precious now.

At length she saw the gallows through the carriage window. The beam was twelve feet above the low platform. A ladder rested against it.  Standing on the platform at the top of the steps was the youth to whom she had made love the night before, wearing the red coat that marked him as the Lord High Executioner. She began to shiver.

The hangman’s assistant opened the carriage door and unfolded its steps. The guards picked her up and pressed her out, while the assistant held her arm to keep her from stumbling. Her body shook with dread as she looked up at the sturdy wooden beam that would hold her aloft, and she envisioned herself hanging from it, swinging like a bell, body in its dying convulsions. With aid, she walked to the platform. Mounting its four steps, she nearly fell.

The crowd cheered, then began to protest at her veil. “We want to see her face” “Her beautiful face!” The hangman gestured for their silence, but the uproar did not cease. “Let us see it!” “Let us watch her strangle!” Even “he let the real Marie-Catherine get away, and is substituting an ordinary wretch!”

Her erstwhile lover put his arm about her shoulders and guided her to the ladder. He turned her with her back to it, then picked up a rope. He doubled the rope over, put the loose ends through the loop, then put it over her head. She shivered involuntarily as he whispered “lift up your chin, Marie-Catherine.” She did so and accepted the double noose. He let it hang down her back as he came before her and lifted the veil to expose her lips. “The kiss of forgiveness. I pray you will not deny me that.” Their lips remained pressed together for seconds; it was not the victim’s usual and reluctant peck. The crowd cheered as the kiss lingered. They could not see his fingers dally between her breasts. At length he stopped. “We must get on with it now, dear lady.”

He stepped behind her and mounted the ladder. She felt the noose tighten slowly as he drew her, choking, up  the rungs. One at a time, they drew higher and higher. Her hoop shirt pushed out in front of her legs. Men in the crowd whistled at the sight of her ankles and even a bit of calf beneath her petticoats.

Finally they reached the beam, and her hangman lover drew her into his lap. She could feel him erect at her back as he tied the two ends of the rope together around the beam. She could feel him shaking, too. He was new to his role, she was his first female victim. His voice shook as he whispered “I’m so sorry, so sorry, for this. Last night was my first time. Now I must hang you.” “Then I shall be your first women in both senses,” she whispered back, her voice also shaking, “please do it well.”

She felt his left leg straighten, no longer holding her in place. Two shaking hands took their place on her shoulders. She could not see him looking down at her famous breasts, heaving in fear, as he gathered courage for what he must do. Through her veil she could see the crowd far below her, eyes expectant, leering grins on their faces. It would be the first time they had ever seen a lady of quality dance at the end of a rope.

Then it happened. His right hand pushed her shoulder forward, and she pitched off the ladder, spinning to her left. She let out a terrified cry that stopped as the noose snapped tight. She felt herself swinging, pivoting by the neck as her feet flew ahead, swinging up in a flurry of petticoats. The crowd gasped and cheered as her legs swung back and forth and she spun, first one way, then the other.

Her neck was brutally wrenched; the knot had slid around to the side, almost to her chin, tilting her head back. Her neck was being wrung; the pain was blinding. She tried to inhale; air came, but not enough. She exhaled it and tried to breath faster and deeper.

Her hangman saw what had happened; the noose had slid into the worst position for a speedy strangulation. She was still rocking back and forth, her bound hands beginning to writhe, as her breath came in gasps and gurgles. As he watched her body began to shake, and her back arched as she tried better to breathe. Her comely breasts seemed ready to leave her bodice with each desperate attempt to inhale. Her feet spread and waved in the air. “So sorry, Marie-Catherine, so sorry…” Her hoop skirts let the crowd see her petticoats and quivering feet. “We already figured she had pretty legs,” one man shouted, “we want to see more!”

The gurgles became more anguished; saliva was filling her mouth. Her feet were now jerking rapidly, her hands clenched; her fingernails drew blood from her palms. She struggled to keep her legs from flying about and giving the crowd what it wanted, but she was losing control.

Her body began to jerk uncontrollably. Then her legs began to churn the air. A strange sensation seized her as her legs rubbed together and, in so doing, stroked her most intimate parts. She stiffened for a moment as the climax hit her, just as it had come to the men she watching hanging. It felt its force blast down her dancing thighs and warm her convulsing belly. Her mind floated as if the struggling body were that of someone else, and for a moment her air hunger passed from her mind.

Her lover did not miss the signs.

Then the air hunger returned. Her entire body exploded in convulsions, chest heaving, shoulders hunching up and down, legs kicking as fast as they could move. The crowd was silent as her petticoats were kicked up and down, exposing her body to the waist. The gasping faded into gurgling.

The hangman realized her death would take a long time, extra minutes added on by her ability to breathe. It gave the excuse he wanted; now it would seem like an act of mercy. He grabbed the rope, steadying her body. Then he carefully towed her convulsing form back onto the ladder. Her jerking feet could not hold to the rung, so her pulled her up into his lap, arms wrapped around her. With the noose’s grip relaxed, the breath exploded from her lungs. She was still convulsing when he slipped his hand over her breast and began lightly stroking it, fingers astride her nipple. “Relax, Marie-Catherine, relax for a moment.”

After a time, her breathing slowed. He felt her nipple stiffen with each stroke. Then her breath began to halt with each inhalation. Her legs came up slowly. He recognized it from the night before, when she had wrapped them around him, using them to add force to each thrust.

Prepared by her strangulation, even now noosed, Marie-Catherine felt as if lightning bolts were descending from her breasts to her moist inner warmth. Then suddenly it spasmed, sending waves of pleasure sweeping over her form. Time after time it came, as she sighed and moaned, until she went limp, exhausted. Her hangman, his manhood pressed against her squirming back, exploded as well, clutching her convulsively as he came.

Some in the crowd guessed what had happened and applauded. It was not every day they saw one of the most beautiful women in the city climax on the gallows – or at least, knew it for certain.

They relaxed together for a moment. Then, whispered in her ear, she heard “it is time, my love.” Again his hands turned her into the air. This time he kept a hand on the knot as he launched her. Again she swung back and forth, limp legs swinging high as the crowd roared its approval. Beneath her veil, she saw the world rotate as the noose compressed her throat, driving her tongue up until it sealed her windpipe. She tried for a breath, and none came, only a tiny squeak. As she spun she could see the ladder and her lover’s feet. She wobbled as she tried to drive her feet toward the ladder, but she only bumped its side.

Her air hunger worsened by the second. She worked her bound hands around to her side, but they could get nowhere near the rope. The double noose held her in its firm hempen grip. She felt hands and feet jerking as she fought for air that did not come. Her lungs began to burn as her chest heaved helplessly.

Then her arms and legs convulsed, Her arms clenched up, trapped by their ropes. But her legs were free, and they kicked wildly.  Someone in the crowd shouted, “At last we saw it – the cutest one in France!” Another answered, “and the most moist one as well!”

Airless agony worsened by the second. Her body was buckling under its impetus, her entire torso doubling up, knees to her breast, letting the crowd see everything. Then the kicking returned. Her hangman lover reached over to stroke her neck. “Let it go, Marie, let it go.”

Still she fought, convulsing in her dying agonies. Her bladder released, and her flailing toes sprinkled the crowd with her last gallows’ dew.  The end was near. She had been four minutes without air, and her muscles were burning from its lack. Her mind was wracked with asphyxia’s agony as her body stiffened.

Her hangman lover saw the time was ripe. With both hands on the beam he lifted himself up, then carefully placed both feet upon her shoulders. Last night he had gripped them in climax, today he must give her climax of a different sort. He lowered himself, adding his weight to hers. The noose drew even tighter.

She felt the weight, and the incredible wrenching of her neck. Her body summoned one last spasm in which every muscle clenched tight. The stronger muscles overpowered the weaker, and her body bent backward, until her quivering heels almost reached her shoulders. “Let it go, Marie-Catherine, let it go.” The crowd, seeing her long, and now blue, legs, and knowing that the climax of the hanging was nigh, watched in silence As she rotated slowly, her chest heaved in her last spasms, trying desperately to draw in air. The hangman saw the beautiful breasts he had just caressed bouncing with each convulsive agony.

His victim felt the explosion of a last, agonized, climax, her internal parts seizing and releasing, her womb pulsing, the pleasure filling her strangled body with its waves. She saw the world rotating, the ladder she could not reach, the crowd silent and watching. Then her vision dimmed and her legs descended, jerking at every stage. Her breasts, now a pale blue, heaved again, weakly, as her unconscious body still tried to survive. Once more, and then they were still. Her airless ordeal was finished.

She hung limp at the end of the deadly rope, slowly spinning in the Spring air. She did not feel her lover step off her shoulders, nor see the crowd as it watched for any additional struggles, and then began to leave. The party was over.

An hour later, a sniffling hangman lover drew her onto the ladder, severed the rope, and lowered her down the rungs she had ascended. He removed the noose, seeing the cruel marks it had made, untied the hands that had once caressed him, and lifted her into her family’s coffin.

 Technical Aspects

The noose. There is a big difference of opinion and custom here. Americans traditionally used a very elaborate noose, which tends to "lock up tight." Most other countries have used a simple slip knot (two half hitches to you Scouts). The British have in the last century gone to a metal ring fastened onto the rope, in the belief that the American knot cushions the blow and makes neck fracture less likely. For some reason, the American noose seems popular in the Mideast.

There does not appear to be much difference as far as slow hanging is concerned. Photographs of real hangings with a slip knot show the knot does not really tighten much, but rides up on the back of the neck. The weight on the front of the neck is the real strangler, not the tightening of the entire noose.

In 15th-16th century France, a different and very elaborate noose was often used. It required two ropes. The first was doubled over, then the loose ends passed through the resulting loop. A second one was tied around the neck between this loop. The second rope was used to tow the victim around and up the ladder, whereupon the two ends of the other one were fastened to the beam. After the victim was kicked off the ladder, the hangman could haul on the other rope to further tighten matters.

Restraints. The purpose of tying the victim is not to prevent escape from the noose -- no one has enough strength to haul themselves up the rope hand over hand, and the effect of hanging is usually to make this effort impossible anyway. The purpose was rather to prevent the victim from panicking at the last moment and putting up a fight. It was one thing for the victim to remain composed while in the jail cell, another to remain composed as they were expected to mount the ladder, or stand still on the scaffold as the noose was prepared.

Most countries tie the hands in back. The British, until the late 1800s, tied the hands in front. The reason is unknown--perhaps a custom from the days when victims were "turned off" a ladder, with it making it hard to grab the ladder? Sometimes an additional rope was run around the victim's body at the height of the elbows. This ensured that the victim could raise his bound hands in prayer, but would have trouble using them to fight the noose.

Most modern countries today use a leather harness, buckled on the victim well in advance. At the last minute, the victim's arms are then quickly buckled to it in front.

Legs were, in the past, sometimes tied as well, sometimes at the knee as well as the ankle. A law enforcement friend who served as a hangman after WWII and witnessed several hangings since said this was not so much to restrain the person as to prevent the loss of bowel control from making too big a mess. Tying the legs does not, however, appear to have been done prior to the 1860s.

Hoods. Up until the late 17th century, no hoods were used, and the public saw the victim's face as they died. After that it became customary to put a hood, or at least a large blindfold, over the victim's head. As it made little difference to the victim, it is assumed that it was meant to make the hanging more acceptable to the onlookers, who did not see the victim's face contorting. The hoods were short enough to leave the neck open. In some cases a simple blindfold was used.

The more recent British practice was to use a longer hood and put the noose over that. The reason given is to prevent rope-burns on the corpse, although how that improves things is not clear (as we noted above, the neck is usually stretched visibly anyway in long-drop hangings).

Method. At least in England, this went through several changes.

Hoist. In the earliest, the victim was simply hoisted up. This meant a lot of work, and required a team of persons. Hoisting a hundred-plus pounds is not a one-man task, particularly if the rope is just flung over a beam (there is no mention of pulleys being used in these cases.) Likely one person lifted the victim up to make it easier for those pulling on the rope; there are mentions of this being done in improvised British military executions in the early 19th century.

Ladder. Up through the 18th century, a ladder was used. The victim was made to climb the ladder, facing away from it. They could be pushed onto the ladder, or beaten (a French custom) or the hangman could mount the ladder first and use the noose as a leash to drag them up: to breath, the victim had to follow. The noose was tied to the beam, usually with only about two feet of rope between beam and noose. Then either the ladder was turned over ("turning off") or it was kicked down, or the hangman pushed the victim off the ladder. Sometimes for convenience two ladders were used, or a double-wide one, so that the hangman had his own secure footing. In other cases, he would have essentially drawn the victim into his lap, then tied off the rope and pushed them into the air.

At the execution of Mary Blandy, in 1752, her town had no regular gallows, so a beam was simply put between two trees near the jail. She was hanged with her toes only a few feet off the ground for a reason: "On her ascending the gallows she begged that she might not be hanged high, "for the sake of decency"; and on her being desired to go a little higher, expressed her fear that she should fall. The rope having been put round her neck, she pulled her handkerchief over her face, and was turned off on holding out a book of devotions which she had been reading." (The report also mentions her being noosed by a woman, who also helped adjust the blindfold. The sheriff probably felt that, as a woman of quality, she should be touched by a woman, not an executioner.

Victims had to be hanged one at a time, with the others forced to wait in line as their predecessors struggled, choked, and slowly died only a few feet away.

With the ladder, victims were hanged high, on only a short length of rope. With women victims, this made for a show (beyond a slip-like garment known as a shift, women wore no undergarments until Victorian times). Their feet were usually well above their viewer's heads, so as their legs thrashed the audience got a view of their legs and loin. If the convulsions included knees snapping up to chest, they would be fully exposed as they hung there dying.

Men had a similar problem. They often erected and ejaculated as they died (see blog post on medical studies, below), and there was a legend that the mandrake plant grew from hanged men's semen. Again, clothing gives an explanation. In the medieval period, male commoners wore a pair of tights, one for each leg, tied together with laces at the waist. Since this would have left a man exposed, a sort of breechcloth covered the loins. A hanging man's erection could easily find its way around the breechcloth, or the breechcloth might come free as he convulsed and fall away. Either way, the jerking victim would be left spewing his semen into the air.

Cart. Starting in the late 17th century (and thus overlapping with the ladder method), the cart was used. It was traditional for the victim to be driven to the gallows on a cart -- why make them get off the cart and then climb back up the ladder? This was seen as more humane, since often the victim grew terrified at the sight of the ladder they must mount, and had to be forced up it.

In this approach, the hangman simply had the victim stand, usually facing forward on the cart (often toward a clergyman reading the rites for the dead). Facing forward ensured that the noose would not slip around to the front of the neck when the cart departed.

The rope was fastened to the beam (sometimes by an assistant sitting straddling the beam, if the gallows were too high for the hangman to reach the beam) and at the right moment the hangman led the horses forward, pulling the cart away. The noose tightened and dragged the victim off the cart.

This also had the advantage that several victims could be hanged at once, and the terror of waiting was reduced. On the other hand, victims tended to be slowly dragged off the cart, since horses pulling a cart do not make a "jackrabbit start," and the victims were usually at the center or at the front of the cart. Reports of the time mention people crying out or taking other actions as the cart was being pulled away from under them. In the case of Thomas Carr and Elizabeth Adams (1738) it was reported:

"They were both remarkably composed for people in their dreadful situation, and just as the cart began to draw away they kissed each other, joined hands, and thus were launched into eternity."

And with Sarah Malcolm, a 22 year old hanged in 1733,

"At the place of execution, near Fetter Lane, she behaved with the utmost devoutness and resignation to the Divine will; but when the ordinary, in his prayers, recommended her soul to God she fainted, and with much difficulty recovered her senses. On the cart driving off she turned towards the Temple, crying out, " Oh, my mistress, my mistress! I wish I could see her!" and then, casting her eyes towards heaven, called upon Christ to receive her soul."

With the older high gallows still in wide use, the victim usually wound up hanging on six or eight feet of rope, with their feet two or three feet above ground. (Sometimes there were newer gallows, where the beam was lower). The difference also meant that a helper up on the beam was necessary to tying off the rope; the hangman could not reach the older, higher, beams. Woodcuts indicate that the usual practice was to have the rope quite taut before the cart was driven away: the helper on the beam tied it taut enough to where the person was able to breathe but not much more. This was probably to ensure that the victim (with hands tied in front) was not tempted to panic and try to remove the noose while the hangman was dismounting and walking around to the horse.

Trap. Starting in the late 18th century the modern scaffold began to be used. Here the victim stood over a trapdoor and the trap was sprung. Often the scaffold had a long trapdoor so that a number of victims could be hung at once. Other variants included scaffolds where the entire front of the floor was the trapdoor, and an early one where the victim stood on a sort of elevated platform which dropped into the floor (it was scrapped because it ended to jam; in one particularly unseemly event the victim was left on tip-toe and kept trying to climb back onto the scaffold while the hangman pushed his feet back.). With the use of the scaffold the long-drop hanging eventually was made possible (although it did not come into use for another century). In a scaffold hanging, the rope was not necessarily kept taut; there was often a foot or so of slack. Perhaps this was because the hangman or his assistants could stay next to the victim, to prevent any attempt to pull the noose off.

Early trapdoors, however, had their own problems. The earliest British ones were not actually a trapdoor, but a boxlike structure which extended up above the gallows floor for a couple of feet. On being tripped, they were supposed to descend. But the mechanism could fail, as Robert Johnston found in 1818:

"The customary devotions took place, and the unhappy wretch, with an air of the most undaunted boldness, gave the necessary signal. Nearly a minute elapsed, however, before the drop could be forced down, and then it was found that the toes of the wretched culprit were still touching the surface, so that he remained half suspended, and struggling in the most frightful manner. It is impossible to find words to express the horror which pervaded the crowd, while one or two persons were at work with axes beneath the scaffold, in the vain attempt to hew down a part of it beneath the feet of the criminal."

There was still plenty of room for a hangman to botch his work. In 1868, Priscilla Biggadyke was hanged in Boston, and the hangman insisted on putting the noose under her chin, claiming that that caused instant unconsciousness. Newspapers reported rumors that she had struggled for 20 minutes, crying out, and that "her cries were heartrending in the extreme." The newspaper denies this, stating that "the struggles of the unhappy woman lasted at least three minutes." Another newspaper reported that a witness stated "The rope was placed round the neck, with the knot under the chin, so that deceased breathed for some minutes before death. The executioner had told him that by the body hanging in that way the head was thrown backwards on to the spine of the back, so that all sensation was destroyed, but at all events it did not prevent the deceased from breathing. She was about three and a half minutes in dying, from the fall of the drop."

The earliest traps were released by iron bolts (beams similar to the old-fashioned door bolt, not a modern screw-like bolt). The hangman went into the space below the gallows and pulled the bolts free.

Other modes. There were occasional uses, mostly in the USA, of a reverse principle. The victim stood on the ground. The noose was fastened to a rope, which in turn was connected to a heavy object such as a box of rocks. Another rope, holding the rocks, was then cut and the box went down and the victim went up. Although this seems a practical solution (and gave two chances to break the neck, one as the victim was jerked up, another as he fell back down) it faded out.

The Austrians favored a post method. The rope was run over the top of the post. After it was tied in place, the victim's footing was kicked away. This did have the virtue of simplicity.

Assisting the victim during slow hanging. On occasions, hangmen might "assist" the victim, particularly if they had already put up a long struggle. Presumably this was done when the rope had slid to the side or front of the neck and the victim was still getting some air.

With the ladder method, the hangman might get on the beam, place his feet on the victim's shoulders, and stand up. Or he might replace the ladder if it had been kicked down, and do the same. Or, if it was a high gallows, he might simply grab the victim's feet and pull. Hangmen tended to like the trapdoor method since they could pull from the privacy of the area under the gallows, and remedy an error without the spectators knowing. When a victim's struggles slowed, they could hang on their feet and with luck make it appear as if they were no longer kicking, thus making it seem as if they had died most rapidly than was really the case.

One 17th century woodcut indicates a truly remarkable attempt to help a female victim die. As the hangman pulls on her feet, a soldier takes a musket and beats on her chest with its butt! With the ladder method, friends or family sometimes pulled on the victim's legs as well -- in the case of one woman the hangman drove them off, because they were pulling so vigorously they were likely to break the rope.

Long drop. Beginning with the British in the period after 1860, the long drop came into use. Here, the victim is dropped a distance (based on weight, adjusted for neck size, etc.) calculated to snap their neck. This is based on the weakness of the upper portion of the spine, just below the head, which is weak since it bears little weight and must also turn sideways to let the head turn. The ideal mechanics are that the spinal column is suddenly bent sideways and backward by the noose. The side nearest the noose remains intact, and the column pivots on that. The side away from the noose is subjected to great pressure as the head pivots, and is crushed (a compression fracture is the technical term) by pressure from the vertebrae above and below it. Pressure of the noose then pushes the sharp bone fragments against the spinal cord, cutting it. This is the ideal: in most cases, what happens is that the spine dislocates. That is, it simply pulls apart between two vertebrae and the spinal column is snapped there by the tension as the neck elongates an inch or two.

The earliest long drops involved considerable drops, of nine feet or more. This was probably because the noose was placed at the back of the neck with no particular preparation. Modern drops are shorter. The noose is placed at the side of the neck, on the weak side (left for most people) so that the neck muscles offer less resistance. The rope is boiled and pre-stretched to remove most of its "give." In the British system (with a metal loop, sliding freely instead of a noose) a leather washer encircles the rope above the loop, so that it can be held tightly to the neck in the right position.

The snapping of the neck does not itself kill. It does paralyze the body so that no convulsions are seen and, one might hope, the impact or the tearing renders the victim unconscious. Death actually results from asphyxiation or blood cutoff, as in slow hanging. Incidentally, my friend who witnessed judicial hangings says there is an audible "crack" when the neck is properly broken.

Improvisation. This of course relates to official, judicial, hangings. In unofficial hangings (example the Nazi killings of "partisans" and anyone who resembled one) the victim was simply forced to stand on whatever was handy -- stools, chairs, boxes -- and this was then kicked away. Or the victim was stood on a truck (the modern equivalent of a cart) and that was driven away. In some locations, the rope was simply extended over the top of a post and the victim hanged right against the post. And modern third-world countries have been known to make use of construction hoist trucks to hoist the victim up! Since the object of these exercises is to create terror, slow hanging was always used. The SS in particular liked to force its victims to strip so that they could be hanged naked. In that setting, the degredation was at its maximum, as the victim was not only exposed, but any demeaning effects -- urination, defecation, erection, ejaculation -- were on full and messy display.

The Physiology.

In the usual slow hanging, asphyxia is actually not produced by compressing the trachea, the windpipe. Rather, the pressure of the noose causes the base of the tongue to push backward and upward and thus seal off breathing. Most pathologists believe that it takes relatively little pressure to completely shut off the flow of air, and suggest that there would be no gasping or other breathing once the victim is hanged. However, a medical article that discusses several videotaped suicidal hangings mentions gasping and wheezing. This may, again, depend on location of the noose.

The other cause of death is the shutting off of blood flow to the brain, due to compression of the carotid arteries. This alone is enough to kill, as shown by several persons who fatally hanged themselves despite having a tracheostomy hole which enabled them to keep inhaling air. There is still a little blood flow -- there are the vertebral arteries, which are inside the spine at the usual noose location and thus shielded from pressure -- but they are not enough to keep the brain alive for very long.

Both processes are dependent upon noose placement. At the back of the neck, the full body weight falls on the windpipe and much of it on the blood vessels, so both are likely to be sealed off instantly. On the side of the neck, at least one set of blood vessels are clear and the windpipe may be partially open. In this setting, the victim may remain conscious longer, and strangulation may take much longer, as the person is able to breathe, just not enough to keep life going indefinitely. It is noticeable that persons hanged with the knot at the back often end with a rather peaceable expression, while those hanged with the knot at the side appear anguished. The first three images below come from the hanging of the Nazi prison guards; the last from a recent hanging in Iran.

The Process

The beginning.

The noose snaps upward, snapping the mouth shut, if the noose is at the back of the neck. The tongue does not protrude. There are a few exceptions, where the noose initially caught low on the neck and rolls upward, forcing the tongue out before the pressure hits the jaw; in these cases the tongue is bitten badly. The other exceptions are where the noose is placed far on the side of the neck: here the weight falls on the neck under the far point of the jaw, and the jaw may be free to open.

Survivors report feelings of fullness in the head and clenching in the jaw. There is also a feeling of weakness which stops them from clutching at the rope. Survivors also report that the main pain here is not suffocation, but the bite of the rope and stretching of the neck. Feelings of suffocation obviously mount as time goes on.

Often the victim panics and begins kicking or trying to reach the ground with their toes, from the moment they are suspended. This conscious kicking is distinct from the true convulsions, which come later. In other cases the victim hangs almost motionless during this period, perhaps because the body goes rigid from the pain. If the hands are bound in front, they snap upward to mid-chest and usually clench.

In most cases, suicidal and otherwise, the face does not become congested. The rope has cut off blood flow into the head, so the face remains pale and becomes bluish as suffocation progresses. In some cases, where the blood flow is not fully cut off, the face may become red. Occasionally, blood escapes from the mouth and nose. Likely this reflects nosebleeds in cases where the blood pressure rises in the head. Occasionally also, foam or bloody foam is seen at the mouth. This presumably results where air is not totally cut off and the lungs can blow some past the knot. All this relates to full suspension. If the victim is not fully suspended, the face can redden and become engorged. Blood pressure in the arteries is much higher than in the veins, so blood can flow into the head while not being able to escape through the veins.

Consciousness.

In general, the victim is conscious only for a short time, although it may seem like an eternity. Survivors' reports and pathological studies suggest consciousness may be lost in as little as 8-10 seconds, due to cutoff of blood flow, or may last up to nearly a minute. A few survivors of judicial hangings have reported consciousness well into the convulsive stages, that they could feel the suffocation and their body kicking and fighting, but this appears the exception rather than the rule. Unconsciousness is preceded by "things going black" as the vision shuts down from lack of oxygen.

Several attempted suicides report, however, that after they became unconscious they returned to consciousness and felt a great deal of suffering. How this can occur is unknown, but the reports seem credible.

Knot placement may make a difference here, as noted above A noose at the side or, worse yet, the front, may allow consciousness and very slow strangulation.

The victim often loses control of their bladder. This seems to occur around the time when consciousness is lost, and most often just before unconsciousness. Pathologists in strangling cases sometimes use this to judge whether the victim was strangled when standing up. A long trail of urine down the skirt or pants suggests that the person was standing until they passed out and slumped, with their strangler, to the floor. A shorter trail indicates they were already lying down when they reached this stage. The use of this forensic tool again suggests that bladder control is lost just before consciousness fades.

Convulsive phase.

This begins about 10-45 seconds into the hanging. Before this stage begins, the victim's chest will usually heave in futile attempts to breathe, and the heaving rapidly speeds up. A witness to a hanging of a woman as a spy in WWI mentioned that her struggles made it seem as if she was in hysterical laughter, presumably a reference to her chest and shoulders rapidly jerking.

This is rapidly followed by whole-body convulsions. The convulsions can take a variety of forms, and one form can lead into another. They can be mild or incredibly powerful: a witness to an early 18th century hanging of a woman wrote that she jerked so powerfully he thought the rope would snap.

One form involves violent shivering, as all the muscles begin to vibrate, clenching and then extending in very rapid spasms. In one "botched" judicial hanging, the body was out of sight below the trap, but onlookers knew it was botched because the rope began to hum from the victim's rapid spasms of this type. It would take violent and very rapid spasms to make a rope hum audibly.

Another involves a clonic seizure, where the muscles simply lock up. In this case, the legs would be snapped up under the chin and would hold there for a time.

A more spectacular form is the traditional "Tyburn jig," where the legs jerk and kick rapidly, sometimes in unison, sometimes separately. (In one series of 17th century executions, the victims were mocked by having a musician actually play a jig as they jerked around.).

Another form (and often the last stage of the other forms) involves a prolonged tightening, to an absolutely incredible degree, of all the body's muscles. Since the muscles in the back of the body and legs are far stronger than those in the front, this results in the victim bending backward. (My witness to judicial hangings said that in some cases the victim's heels nearly touched the back of their head.

If the hands are tied in front, the hands will usually be pulled up to mid-chest during this stage, and only slump down when the convulsive stage ends. Or they may be thrust straight forward, as if pleading. The medical journal had images of one suicide dying, arms (unbound) thrust forwards, wrists twisting, If hands are tied behind, the victim will often hike them up to the small of their back.

The convulsive stage lasts until death or near-death. Reports of judicial hangings indicate that this takes around ten minutes on average. In some cases, it took as little as three, and in some cases as much as twenty. The reasons for the variation are unknown. Two early 18th century persons who survived hanging and became known as "half-hanged" were said to have been suspended about six minutes. This would suggest that their convulsions stopped at about that point and the hangman assumed they were dead. (One died later that night; the other suffered severe brain damage).

Hangmen later were instructed to let the victim hang for an hour, which of course prevented any survivals. In the mid 19th century, the custom became that of having a doctor listen for heartbeat, and considering the victim dead when that stopped.

Death

Brain damage has already begun, at about 3-5 minutes, and it progresses, as do the convulsions. Over the next five or so minutes the damage becomes more serious. Even in modern medicine, a complete shut-off (as in cardiac arrest) for more than 6-7 minutes means death or a vegetative state. Hanging isn't that dramatic a cutoff of oxygen to the brain, so there may be a bit of leeway.

The convulsions slow and taper to an end. Usually the last form of convulsive action is the heaving of the chest after the rest of the body is still. Occasionally the victim will be still, and then suddenly seize up. (One person in the 18th century was busily looting a supposedly dead hanged man, when he kicked them.)

The heart continues to beat for some minutes after all other action ceases (technically known as agonal beating), until the blood becomes so acidic from carbon dioxide buildup that the heart stops functioning.

There is the report from old judicial hangings that the victim, at the point of death (meaning point when convulsions end, since people watching had no other way to judge) would emit a sort of moan or whimper. (In Kipling's "Hanging of Danny Deever," he has the onlooking soldier hear a wimper overhead; he is told that the victim's soul is passing now.) There may be some reason for skepticism, since the noose would likely have cut off all air flow, in or out. Perhaps in cases where the knot was at the front of the neck and some air could flow and the victim's fight for breath ends with a moan?

 One humorous part is how the authors, confronted with clear signs of arousal in both male and female victims, hasten to explain it cannot possibly be due to ... arousal. "This IS the Victorian Age! Nothing arouses! It is just an embarrassing part of our duty to reproduce!"

The Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, London, 1833

Asphyxia from strangulation.—The third division of the causes of asphyxia comprehends all those that prevent the access of air to the lungs, whether by suffocation or strangulation. The most common of these is a ligature round the neck, as in the case of hanging,

Considerable variety is observed in the length of time during which vitality continues while criminals are suspended from the gallows; the differences depending, in a great measure, on the mode in which the rope is adjusted round the neck, the height and suddenness of the fall, and other circumstances of violence attending the execution. Much also will depend on the peculiar constitution and previous bodily condition of the individual. Convulsions of an epileptic character very generally supervene on the loss of sensibility, which, if the closing of the trachea be complete, as it generally is in consequence of the strong pressure of the rope, very speedily follows the exclusion of air. The face is always turgid, and suffused with livid blood. This swelling and turgescence extend also to the shoulders, arms, hands, and chest, which are of a livid hue. The eyes are generally open, and projecting, and the vessels of the conjunctiva distended with blood. The tongue is frequently thrust out of the mouth, and wounded by the convulsive action of the jaws; and a bloody mucus issues, in consequence, from the mouth.

The distortion of the features, and other marks of strong muscular action, are evidently consequences of the violent struggles of the sufferer, and are proportional to the irritation excited in the brain. The muscles which raise the shoulders, and assist the muscles of inspiration, are strongly contracted. The other muscles of voluntary motion, instead of being rigid, are more relaxed than usual; so that the limbs exhibit more flaccidity than in cases of tranquil death. The mark of the cord will always be evident round the neck, forming, when the person has been hanged up alive, a livid depressed circle. Frequently we find patches of ecchymosis on the surface of the upper part of the trunk and superior extremities.

The fingers are bent, the nails blue, and the hands firmly clenched. From the relaxation of the sphincters, the urine and faeces are often involuntarily expelled. Erection of the penis and emission of semen also frequently take place from hanging.

It is evident, from all these circumstances, that the struggle is usually more intense in this mode of death than in drowning. This happens more especially when, from the inaccurate adjustment of the rope, from rigidity of the cartilages ,f the larynx, or from any other cause, the trachea is imperfectly closed: for, in that case, a small current of air may still pass, and, though insufficient to support life, may contribute to prolong the sufferings and struggles of the victim. This is often observed in those who voluntarily hang themselves, and who frequently suffer much before they die, in consequence of their inexpert mode of executing their purpose; and in whom we consequently find the cheeks, lips, eyes, and tongue particularly swollen and prominent. In the same proportion as we meet with these indications of a more protracted death, we find the lungs less gorged with blood, and the blood about the heart more equally distributed among its cavities and great vessels. For, in consequence of the admission of even a small portion of air into the lungs, the heart is enabled to keep up the circulation for a longer time, and is only more gradually overpowered; while, at the same time, the pressure of the rope on the jugular veins in the neck obstructs the return of the blood from the head, accumulates it in the vessels of the face, and gives rise to the appearances of apoplexy.

Dr. Plott, in his Natural History of Staffordshire, relates that in the reign of Henry VI. a woman of the name of Snetta de Balsham, after having been hanged according to the sentence of the law, and cut down after being suspended a whole night, was found to be still alive; in consequence of which extraordinary escape she was pardoned by the king. of ordinary stature, who had died from hanging, contained in the one case two hundred and fifty, and in the other two hundred and sixtytwo cubic inches of air; whereas the lungs of those who die a natural death contained only from ninety to one hundred and twenty-five cubic inches, or, taking the mean of four experiments, one hundred and nine cubic inches. The reason of this difference is obvious: persons about to be hanged are under the influence of fear, and will therefore naturally make a deep inspiration before the cord is tightened on the neck; and the pressure of the cord on the trachea, when the body is suspended, becomes immediately so great, that the air cannot again be expelled.

London Medical and Surgical Journal, London, 1835

It is only by supposing the asphyxia to have been incomplete, that we can imagine the possibility of the circulation being renewed, and the brain relieved, that we can account for some of the cases of recovery after criminal execution by hanging. A man of the name of John Smith, who was executed at Tyburn, on the 24th December, 1701, was cuyt down in fifteen minutes, in consequence of the arrival of a reprieve; and was recovered by venesection.

The lecturer related the story of a woman who nas executed at Edinburgh, in 1828, —revived at Peppermill—she was also bled. Governor Wall was long in dying; in consequence of which a particular examination of his throat took place, and it was found to have been owing to an ossified [converted into bone-like tissue] portion of the trachea resisting the pressure of the rope……

In many instances there is a laceration of the larynx or trachea; the vertebra; of the neck are often luxated, chiefly owing to rupture of the ligaments of the neck; in which case, also, there is likely to be compression or nipping of the spinal cord. It is said that two noted executioners at Paris, whose victims perished in different manners, being questioned as to the cause of this difference, stated that one of them produced a luxation of the first cervical vertebra from the second, and a consequent laceration of the trachea, by placing the knot of the cord under the neck, and giving a rotatory motion to the body on pulling it from the ladder, whilst the other placed the knot at the back of the neck, and let his victim fall gently, and without the rotatory movement. It is not unusual for those who suffer from hanging to void the urine, fteces, and semen, and to display and erection of the penis in artiatlo mortis.

In post-mortem examination of the bodies of persons who have been hanged, independent of the luxations of the vertebra;, and the lacerations of the cartilages and the trachea, the lungs are found livid, expanded, and the trachea often filled with bloody froth: the right cavities of the heart are gorged with blood, whilst the left is nearly empty; and the blood, which often remains fluid, follows every incision of the scalpel. The pulmonary cells are distended, and, as in case of smothering, the 1ungs do not collapse when the chest is opened. In general, although the face is full of blood, and distorted, yet sometimes it remains pale, and prevents few indications of cerebral compression. The shoulders are usually raised, from the strong effort made to inspire, before asphyxia supervenes: there frequently ecchymoses (bruises) observed upon them, extending upon the breast and down the arms: the fingers are unusually bent, the nails blue, and often the bunds clenched….

The most prominent diagnostic signs, and those to be depended upon, are,
1. The mark of the cord, seen either at first, or appearing after a few hours have elapsed.
2. The distortion of features, and the contraction of the muscles which raise the shoulders.
3. The fingers bent, the nails blue, and the hands firmly clenched.
4. The erectile state of the penis, with the emission of semen, and the expulsion of urine and faces.

The absence, however, of this sign, is no proof against the conclusion, that hanging has been the cause of death: for although in every instance erection takes place in the act of hanging, yet, an hour or two afterwards, this state has disappeared, or a semi-erection only exists.

Legal Medicine, New York 1884

The Symptoms produced by Hanging.

Death, as we have said, may be instantaneous and symptomless.
Where the fatal termination is not instantaneous, the four symptoms, viz., intense heat felt in and within the head—flashes of brilliant light in the eyes—deafening sounds in the ears—and lastly, a heavy, benumbed feeling in the lungs, are practically the only symptoms (although symptoms uniformly present) in death by hanging. Nevertheless the period of consciousness is invariably very short and unattended with acute pain. (See detailed account of an experiment in hanging, Med. Times and Gaz., 1882, ii., p. 729.)

Symptoms vary (so it has been suggested) according to the exact position of the ligature, and whether the air tubes, or the blood vessels, or both are compressed. It is useless detailing all that has been said on this point. As a rule, efforts to inspire are made for at least a minute after the air passages are closed. Some have spoken of the pleasurable sensations of hanging, whilst others have said it is a painless death. Although the countenance as a rule in our experience speaks differently, this may merely bo the result of convulsive straggles which invariably occur, and do not, any more than in an epileptic fit, necessarily imply pain. Asphyxia is rapid, a very slight constriction quickly reducing loss of power and sensation (Cases 53 and 54). Convulsions may, however, be absent, as is tolerably certain to have been the case in Cases 35 and 38. Urine, faeces, and semen are at times expelled.

And this leads us, in connection with Case 61, to remark that the sudden and complete interruption to the access of air, from whatever cause it may happen, may be attended with the effusion of semen into the urethra, without any ejaculation necessarUy occurring to cause its expulsion. Hence to determine whether effusion of semen has actually occurred, pressure along the course of the urethra, and a microscopic examination of the fluid expressed (if any) is required. (Huppert and Muller-Benigna.)
It is evident from recorded cases that hanging may be effected without persons in rooms immediately adjoining hearing any noise to arouse suspicion (Cases 36, 37).

Thus in hanging we have in most cases unattended with violence, three distinct stages:—
(a.) A short stage of semi-consciousness (partial stupor), extending from thirty seconds to three minutes.
(b) A stage of subjective death but of objective life, varying in time from ten minutes onwards.
(c) A stage of objective general death, lasting until the occurrence of rigor mortis.

After the convulsions all the muscles save the heart become quiescent; but they simplv wait for a stimulus, such as galvanism, heat, etc. (See "Med. Times and Gaz." 1871, i., p. 43.)
And here it is most important to note that the existence of convulsions does not indicate sensibility, or a knowledge of life on the part of the person passing through the ordeal of death. ("British Med. Jour." 1876, i., p. 664. [Execution of the "Lennie " murderers. ]) And further, it is certain that the action of the heart may continue long after convulsions have ceased. As a rule the pulse may be felt for ten minutes, and, as a fact, in judicial executions the right auricle has seldom ceased to act when the body of the criminal is taken down after the usual time of suspension. Vol. III.—16

Tardieu mentions a case where the heart beats, numbering eighty, where heard one and a-half hours after the supposed death.
…
The muscles of the face retained their electro-muscular contractility.

IV.—The Post-Mortem Appearances After Death by Hanging.
We purposely omit nearly all those appearances common to death by apnoea or coma. (Case 60.)
1. The body may be found stiffened in almost any position, determined principally by its attitude in death (Case 62.)
2. The position of the head varies according to the part of the neck to which the rope or ligature has been attached, and the position of the knot . The commonest position in suicide is for the head to be forcibly flexed forwards, with the chin pressing against the upper part of the chest. More rarely the head is completely bent back, as in cerebro-spinal meningitis. The head will always be found inclined to the opposite side to that of the knot, which answers to its fixed attachment.
3. The face is sometimes pale, but is more often congested and swollen especially in those who have been long suspended. On this point Esquirol,' Fleichman,1 and Ollivier* (d'Angers) have offered explanations, which Tardieu justly considers in great part theoretical. (Case 3.)

In twenty-one of Dr. Ogston's forty cases of hanging (= 52.5 per cent.) the features were calm and placid. In one (a suicide) the expression was anxious, and the eyeballs prominent.
In one case, the external auditory canals were recorded as full of blood.

4. The tongue. Dr. Taylor says that in hanging the tongue is enlarged and livid, and either protruding or compressed between the teeth. Dr. Guy also speaks of the swollen state of the base of the tongue, as affording a strong probability of suspension during life. Dr. Chevers and Dr. Beatson have not noticed protrusion of the tongue in hanging except as a result of putrefaction, but Dr. Chevers remarks on the base of the tongue and of the glottis being invariably of a violet livid hue. (Case 3.)
In 14 of Dr. Ogston's cases (= 35 per cent.), and in 11 out of 27 of Devergie's cases, the tongue was either protruded or marked by the teeth.

This protrusion of the tongue is entirely independent of the position of the cord.

5. The pupils are nearly always dilated, and the eyes staring and prominent. (Cases 3 and 37.)
In thirty nine of Dr. Ogston's cases (= 97.5 per cent.) the pupils weredilated, and in only one contracted.

6. It is generally stated that blood-stained froth is to be found about the nose and lips. Dr. Ogston, however, found froth at the lips in 3 only of his 40 cases, and at the nostrils in but one. (Case 3.)

7. The hands vary in position like the head. The fists are often closed so tightly that the finger nails penetrate the palms. ( Case 6.) This is specially noticeable where the hanging has been violently effected. But in incomplete hanging (that is where the feet are not off the ground), the hands may be stretched out, or rest open on the ground.

The legs also vary in position. They generally present a livid appearance.

8. The neck in nearly all cases appears stretched, and will probably exhibit marks of the ligature employed. Probably, we say, for if the hanging be very brief, and the ligature very soft and supple, and the body be instantly cut down after death, there may be no mark of a ligature at all. Dr. Allison, in a paper in the " Lancet," 1869, i., p. 636, contends that the track of the cord is a purely cadaveric phenomenon, and that its diagnostic value is very questionable. Although in our own experience it is true that the mark is more or less independent of the ligature and of the duration of the suspension, and that it does not ordinarily acquire its colour for some hours after death, it is certain that at times it does occur within a comparatively short period. (" Edin. Med. Journ." i., p. 299.)

A Textbook of Legal Medicine (1905)

We may, with Tidy, divide the phenomena of hanging into three stages.
First Stage.—There is partial loss of consciousness, with stupor. The subjective initial symptoms described by those who have been resuscitated are an intense heat in the head; brilliant flashes of light in the eyes; deafening sounds in the ears; and a heavy, benumbed feeling in the lungs. In many cases ineffectual efforts to breathe are made after the air passages are closed. These several symptoms belong to those cases in which the death is not instantaneous through injury of the spinal cord in the neck. This primary stage may last from thirty seconds to three minutes….

Second Stage.—The person suspended is entirely unconscious, and convulsions usually occur, although these may be wholly lacking. Urine, feces, and semen are expelled at times in this stage, if at all. The hands are clenched. The diaphragm and intercostal muscles act spasmodically. The muscles of the face are contracted in sympathy with the general spasm, and a twitching of the lower limbs is also observed.

It is a common and popular belief that pleasurable erotic sensations are experienced by those who die by hanging. This is a mistaken view. The ground for this error is found in the post-mortem condition of the sexual organs, which are sometimes observed to be more or less turgid in cases of hanging; the penis is erect and shows a discharge of a mucilaginous fluid more likely to be prostatic than seminal; and in the female the clitoris is found swollen, and the adjacent parts are injected.

These appearances, however, are far from proving that sexual sensations correspond on the part of the person suspended. There is entire lack of authentic observations to demonstrate this relationship. In cases of resuscitation after suspension, and timely rescue, there is no record of the erotic symptoms referred to. And no one so restored has avowed such sensations as a part of his experience during the suspension.

Third Stage.—The only remaining sign of life which marks this stage is the continued beating of the heart. This persistent action of the heart has been observed long after death has closed the scene otherwise. As a rule, the pulse may be felt for ten minutes after the drop in a judicial hanging. But there are many extraordinary exceptions. Blankcnsip reports an execution by hanging. Death was by strangulation ; the neck was not dislocated. The pulse beat once in the nineteenth minute. Tardieu reports a case in which the heart was found beating at the rate of 80 per minute, an hour and a half after the supposed death of the man by suspension.

A case occurred in Boston, in 1858, which attracted much attention. A condemned murderer, named Magee, twentyeight years old, weighing 130 pounds, was executed by hanging. The drop was from seven to eight feet. There was no struggle or convulsion. Seven minutes after the drop, the cardiac impulses numbered 100; at nine minutes, they were 98 ; at twelve minutes, they were 60 (fainter); at fourteen minutes, the heart-beats were not audible and the body was lowered. At the autopsy, a little over an hour after the drop fell, the right sternomastoid muscle was found torn ; the hyoid bone was fractured, but the spine was not injured. Ninety minutes after the hanging, the heart was beating 80. The thorax was opened, and the heart was exposed. The right auricle showed full and regular contractions and dilatations. The spinal cord was divided by the pathologist, yet the heart persisted. Two hours after the drop the heart-beats numbered 40. The pulsations of the right auricle continued at intervals for three hours and a half longer. They were readily excited by the scalpel point. The heart was normal in structure.

The duration of the suspension sufficient to cause fatal results—that is to say, the minimum time within which death follows under this condition of things—has been found to offer considerable variety, on account of the diversity of the data.

Averaging results, we may say that resuscitation is not to be expected when a body is cut down after five minutes' full suspension. The extremes stated in the books extend from a second or two at one end to half an hour at the other, although one finds difficulty in recognizing under what possible circumstances a true suspension for thirty minutes could occur with survival at the end. It is not difficult, however, to understand that actual differences in the time may be explained quite readily.

For example, the situation of the noose may not be such as absolutely to annihilate respiration. There will be some difference in effects whether the ligature tightens above, below, or across the thyroid. Then the length of the fall, the weight of the person, his strength, natural vigor, and power of resistance are important considerations. Instantaneous death in hanging is determined by the damage done to the spinal cord. This result is most frequently seen in judicial executions, in some of which decapitation by the rope is accomplished unexpectedly, the head being torn off Louis made the observation that this instantaneousness of death was most readily brought about if the executioner gave the body of the condemned a violent twist when the body dropped, thus fracturing the odontoid process—dislocating the upper cervical vertebra —and either compressing, bruising, or stretching the spinal cord in its upper and most sensitive region. Dislocation of the spine is most apt to occur in those cases in which the knot is placed anteriorly under the chin.

Putnam's Magazine, 1869

The theory of hanging is, that the neck of the culprit should be broken; and it is stated by competent surgical authority that, if this be done successfully, the second cervical vertebra is dislocated, its odontoid process rupturing the transverse ligament of the atlas (the first bone of the neck which sustains the globe of the head), and compressing the spinal cord against the posterior arch of the vertebra. The cord is here just expanding into the medulla oblongata, wherein is situated the ganglion that presides over respiration. Its compression stops respiration at once by stopping all desire for it; and death in such case would be immediate and probably jminless.

But in hanging, as ^practised, the second vertebra often is only partially dislocated, or not affected at all, and death takes place either from slow and painful suffocation,—the victim getting just air enough through the half-closed windpipe to prolong his struggles,—or from apoplexy following the sudden cerebral congestion which is caused both by the suffocation and by the pressure of the rope upon the great veins of the neck.

I do not hesitate to assert, from the facts in my possession, that in at least sixty per cent, of reported cases, in spite of every precaution, the neck has not been broken* The sufferers have slowly and in torment choked to death, frequently with such hard breathing, groans, and contortions, as to drive the witnesses from the dreadful scene. I will only quote from reports of one or two representative cases, but will name a few others, of which the details are too harrowing for republication here.

James Stephens, convicted, on circumstantial evidence, of wife-poisoning (and still believed by his spiritual advisers to have been innocent), was hanged in New York, Feb. 3, 1860. Most careful preparations were made by the sheriff, but the hangman blundered, and Stephens was subjected to great suffering. For many minutes his hard breathing was frightful to listen to.—On the 12th of January, 1866, Marschall and Frecke were hanged at Pittsburgh, Pa. Frecke's neck was not broken, and he " died horribly of strangulation. His struggles were terrible and long-continued."

One week afterwards, Mrs. Martha Grinder, the confessed poisoncss, was executed upon the same gallows for the murder of her last victim,—Mrs. Caruthers. She also suffered terrible and prolonged agonies. An unusual incident of the death-scene is reported by several witnesses: "The rope slipped her cap partially from her face, and, while hanging at the halter's end, by a mighty effort she put up one of her hands sufficiently to draw it down again over her distorted features, thus," says the inductive reporter, "in death asserting the native modesty of woman. She struggled fearfully, and twelve minutes elapsed before her death.''''

The question whether sensation, reflection, arrfl mental horror accompany the physical contortions of those perishing by strangulation, is fairly settled by such a fact as this, and by the conduct of many who have committed suicide. Examples are common of unfortunates who have fastened a noose around the neck and kicked away the support beneath their feet, but who, finding the tortures of strangulation greater than they had conceived, have repented, and made desperate efforts to regain their footing.

At a meeting of the N. Y. Medico-Legal Society, held since this article was prepared. Dr. Finncll stated that he " had carefully examined the corpses of culprits, but had never as yet satisfied himself

that death occurred in any other way thnn by strangulation, notwithstanding the newspaper reports to the contrary." Dr. Chadsey expressed the same opinion.

Alexander B. Wiley, hanged at Wilkesbarre, Pa., March 21st, 1867; Hiram Coon, hanged on the following day, at Troy, N. Y.; Jeremiah O. Brown, hanged at "The Tombs," Aug. 9th, 1867; and Sylvester Quiller, hanged at Elizabeth, N. J., on the ensuing 14th of November;—all died in great and prolonged agony, of strangulation. The reports of the last case are especially poignant. Yet the State of New Jersey, so loyal in maintenance of good old customs, has achieved reputation for the consistency with which her murderers are brought to execution. One would suppose that within her borders, at least, the hangman had mastered his art.

During the year 1888, a kind of professional demoralization has affected the Jack Ketches of this country and England. Whether surfeited with success, or disgusted with their calling, 'tis evident they no longer practise hanging with that enthusiasm and devotion to details required by the connoisseurs of this humanizing art. We, "the latest seed of Time," take little vantage over ruder generations in the adjustment of the noose, the scientific involution of the knot, the adequate balance of the fatal weights. The record of the past year, in fact, is not creditable to the talent of our own and neighboring States. Even in Newgate, that venerable Academy, the hand of the master seems to have lost its cunning: the great Calcraft is blundering like any callow neophyte of our backwoods school.

Thomas Walsh, a boy of 19, hanged at Newark, N. J., January 2d, 1868; Rufus Ludwig, hanged at Salisbury, N. C, on the 26th of June; John Kennedy, hanged at Canton, N. Y., on the 20th of August; and Harrison Young, hanged at Warwick C. H., Va., on the 25th of August;—were all slowly tortured to death. There is no other name for it The accounts are full and trustworthy. Ludwig's execution was one of those old-fashioned outdoor festivals which brought together a larger crowd than ever attended a barbacuc or circus in that region. He made a desperate and dramatic fight for his life, at the last moment. In Young's case the rope broke, and some time elapsed before he was strung up again and more efficiently.

The following month of September brought with it those contending horrors still fresh in the public mind, Old England and New rivalling each other in homicidal punishment and prevention of the crime of homicide; and bungling work they made of it—as all magnanimous people bungle in the commission of such wretched and mistaken deeds! On the 8th, the first private execution at London was carried to effect within the walls of Newgate. Alexander Mackay, aged only 18 years, was hanged for the murder of Mrs. Grossmith. The London journals commented approvingly upon the aspect of Newgate, as contrasted with what it used to be when executions were public. The Times reported:

"There was no uproar, there were no barriers, and, above all, there was no wolfish crowd of thieves and prostitutes waiting to see a man die; the cat-calls, the bonnetings, the preaching of ministers, whose every word used to be interrupted by obscenity and blasphemy, the wild jumping dances to the chorus of' Oh my, think I've got to die!' were all absent There was not even a policeman; the windows opposite the jail were all untenanted, and in these days, when people get compensation for all improvements, it is ulmost wonderful that the owuers or occupiers of these houses have not applied for some indemnity for the los» they suffer from the criminals being hanged in private. There is no bravado of the scaffold now as in the old days, when a man used to ride to Tyburn with a nosegay in his breast and stop to drink on bis way, or as, until lately, when a man would come out on the drop and be cheered by his 'pals' and confederates, according as lie bore himself bravely. Death by hanging now means a silent, terrible execution, where the half-dozen or dozen spectators have the painful duty of staying by until the man is hanged till he is dead. This is almost all that has to be said about private executions."

So much for the external improvement of affairs. The English are at last driven, by the advance of public feeling, to repress the barbarous outdoor exhibitions of Newgate and Tyburn. This is a gain, in that executions serve less than formerly to breed and teach the very crimes they punish; but the opponents of the Death-Penalty will urge that they now, also, serve less to frighten into virtue the few ruffians who are susceptible to impression by the terrors of the scaffold. Hidden and glossed over, they make no interruption to the carnival of vice, and are forgotten the moment they are recorded. When our British cousins are engaged in dirty work, they desire, at least, the credit of doing it above-board, and so do not wholly relish the new system. The London Spectator says of this affair: "It cannot be disputed that social order has gained by the abolition of public hanging, but choking a man in a dark hole is not and never can become an English institution." These are manly words.

When the boy Mackay was hanged, the Times again reported: "His sufferings were dreadful. How Mackay appeared to suffer only those who were present can tell."

On the 25th of September, 1868, Silas James and Charles T. James were executed at Worcester, Mass., for the barbarous murder of Joseph Or. Clark. Silas died with little suffering, but of the agonies of Charles, the younger and least guilty of the two, an eye-witness declared:

"Even while suspended from the terrible scaffolding, he clung to life with the utmost tenacity. He struggled, drew up bis legs a dozen times or more, and bis whole body shook violently, while every now and then his groans and occasional long-drawn breaths broke the sad and painful stillness. The scene was one which could hardly be tolerated, except on recalling the fearful crime of which the men were guilty."

They attended to such matters roughly, but more thoroughly, upon our frontier, so long as Lynch was jury, judge, and hangman. Now that he has been supplanted by the commissioned officers of civilization, and his triple function subdivided, the result is not so gratifying from a scientific point of view. Kufus B. Anderson was executed in Austin, Nevada, on the 30th of last October, for the murder of one Slocum. The newspapers grimly entitle this affair "Another Civilizing Gallows Scene," and from their reports we learn that the rope broke twice, and, in spite of the instinctive attempt of the crowd to rescue the wretched victim, they were forced back by the guard, and Anderson was suspended a third time, and thoroughly hanged.

But enough, and more than enough! Let us drop the catalogue of horrors. A strange impression is made upon the searcher among these noisome records when he sees that murder is hydraheaded; that in almost every newspaper which describes an execution, the telegraphic columns report two or three fresh and atrocious homicides.

It may be said that these horrors, of which the reader can hardly endure the recital, are partly obviated by tthe adoption of the guillotine or garotte. The polite Latin races, certainly, are more advanced than we, who set our teeth together, and resist taste and sensitiveness in the exercise of inherited customs. While there are agonies of a different kind attendant upon these other modes of execution, which render them unnatural to endure or witness, they nevertheless show one form of progress in European civilization. Doubtless, with new scientific knowledge, a painless mode of killing may be discovered,—as by an electric shock, or by the use of some deadly anaesthetic. But the limitation and abolition of the Death-Penalty grow so rapidly that there is small likelihood of its modification by new forms. During the remainder of its period we shall probably stick to the ancestral wont, nor go to France and Spain for any foreign improvements; especially since, as we observe, the first spontaneous act of the people of Madrid, after their late successful revolution, was to proceed en masse to the suburbs and burn the scaffold of the garotte.

What benefit accrues to the murderers themselves, from the prospect of their torture? Apparently, a certain spiritual illumination and reform. To be serious,—and with the utmost reverence for religion itself,—let us say that nothing can be more grotesque and repulsive than the pseudo-religious phase developed under the impending death and the ministrations of the clerical acolytes, who, with the executioner and the surgeon, in their several functions, represent the offices of the Parcte in these » fearful trilogies. Genuine repentance is, without doubt, occasionally exhibited by those condemned to death; but if the majority of these spiritual manifestations are well-founded, then a rightdown villain's short road to Paradise is the perpetration of a brutal murder; for, in most cases, the more brutal the murder, the greater the pious assurance of the condemned.

Mrs. Grinder—who reduced poisoning to a science, and was the Lucrezia Borgia of Western low-life,—when her sins had found her out, went to the gibbet with a cheerful faith that her month of penitence had atoned for her years of remorseless crime. When the sheriff came to lead her to execution, and said, in reply to her first remark, "Yes, Mrs. Grinder, the time has come," she answered with a chirrup, " Yes, and Jesus is coming for me, too!" She acknowledged her guilt, but smiled confidently to the last. Albert Starkweather, a wretch who slaughtered his mother and sister with an axe, and was hanged at Hartford, August 17th, stated by proxy on the scaffold that he died " in charity with all men, and with a strong faith in Jesus Christ, believing he should soon see Him in the spirit." Joseph Williams was still more content with his arrangements for the coming life. This ignorant negro was hanged at New Brunswick, N. J., July 5th, 1867, for the murder of John Reddick. In his speech to the crowd around the gallows, he said: "To-day is my last day. When the clock strikes twelve, I shall see Jesus. If you want to see me again, you must come*to Jesus!" This fellow died easily, and after his short struggle was over, men, women, and children, with true New Jersey amateurehip, marched in procession under the gallows and inspected the corpse.

 from various sites, including talkgroups and the old PNN files. Note that since these stop after a few seconds to a minute, they are not so authoritative as to longer hanging as were the suicide attempts.

(female poster)

From the very first time I heard about it I was interested in hanging. Most people associate it with the old west and cowboys and think it can only be done to guys but from the first I ever heard about it I knew that wasn't true, that it was just made to be done to girls too. And I wanted it done to me. Since then I've tried it a few times in varying degrees and each time it was loverly, just hanging there naked, suffering, really suffering as the rope chokes the life out of you and grey fades to black.

The first time I tried it was when I was smaller and lighter, which makes it easier and helps you to last longer. I remember hearing about hanging in school and talking about it with some boys I knew. They talked about the sexual aspects and people being hung naked. That part turned me on. Being publicly stripped on the gallows and hung in the nude. I wanted it so badly I came just thinking about it. It is difficult to describe why I like this sort of game. Being stripped naked and tied up and then hung by the neck. Nothing quite equals the thrill as every inch of you burns. You struggle helplessly against the ropes that hold your wrists tight. Your body twists and turns wantonly as you try desperately to escape.

The best kind of tie up game is one just like this, the one you know you cannot escape. The one done with no safeword, no chance for mercy, no hope of reprieve. Being stripped naked in the woods and bound hand and foot and the noose put around my neck. And all the while I pleaded for mercy that I knew would never come. That was the day that made me. There was no embarrassment in it for me. In fact my whole body purred. Being naked had plugged my body into a socket and I was humming on high. I didn't know why I liked it but I knew I did.

The first time I was hung was a part of a kidnap game and as usual, being the only girl, I was the kidnappee. I was taken into the woods and told to strip to my underpants. That was no big deal for a European girl used to baring her chest on the beach. My wrists and ankles were bound. We didn't have a gallows, of course. They threw a rope over a tree limb and just tied the end around my throat. No noose or anything, just a loop of clothesline around my throat. I stood on a pile of three concrete blocks. Then they bound my ankles together. I knew they were going to hang me naked because we had talked about it so it was no surprise when they dropped my underpants to my ankles. I loved it. Loved the way they stared at me hungrily. I had never been completely naked before more than one guy at a time and here I was naked in front of a whole group. I practically came just standing there

They just left me up there in the hot sun. Naked. For maybe an hour. Just standing there on top of those blocks. I struggled to untie myself but I couldn't struggle too much or else I might fall off and hang myself. It seemed like I was up there forever and I slowly got more and more scared. Finally I broke down and I cried and begged but they wouldn't let me go. Then finally they figured I had suffered that way enough and they knocked the blocks out from under me and I was hung.

Every inch of me screamed with pain. It was incredible as the full weight of my body was transferred to my neck and the rope tightened around it. It felt as if my head were being torn from my neck. I tried to fight but fear seemed to seize me and I sort of just froze right there in mid air. My body just released and I was stretched out full length in mid-air. I felt the pain as my body weight took hold, the rope squeezed my throat shut and slowly the weight of my own body began to squeeze the life out of me. Then I woke up suddenly and started to struggle helplessly, desperately, futilely to get loose and to get some air.

I begged for help but it did not good, they just left me there. I tried desperately to free my hands as I dangled there. If only I could get my wrists loose. But I couldn't. They had tied my wrists together and then tied my bound wrists to a rope around my tummy. Slowly my body began to weaken. Slowly every muscle began to burn with the pain. And slowly the pain turned to numbness, my fear turned into fog, and as I weakened more and more I slowly drifted toward blackness. Because I was so light it took a couple of minutes before I finally passed out. In the last half a minute I suffered terribly, every inch of my slight brown body in pain. Slowly, slowly I was being choked to death. Every second seemed like an eternity. I begged for help with my last breath. Then everything went black

When I was in my early twenties I did have a relationship with a guy who knew I was fascinated by hanging and one evening we tried it.

His bedroom luckily was one of those with an overhead beam. Before we made love he had prepared with my help a very thick three coiled hangman's noose from rough hemp. He swung it over the beam and was able to hold the other end of the rope while on his back on his bed. I had slipped on a very thick black woolen turtleneck sweater (you know I knit those), that was all. He tied my hands loosely behind my back with a simple two slip knot looped strand of rope. I have to admit that by that point I was sopping wet.

He then noosed me making sure the knot was under my left ear and able to slide forwards. And then I mounted him. He was very, very, ready.

Without any further neck pressure it was incredible, but then he tugged on the loose end of the rope. I gagged and choked and he swears I started to violently rock on him like never before. He stayed inside me and my body was not lifted off him. I do know I came with an explosion I have never had before or since. I did not feel him come, I was just into my own sensations which were indescribable. He told me he did come but was just amazed by the violence of mine and how I spasmically clutched him inside me. The pain drove me wild, I felt my head being pulled away, but what went on inside me drove me wilder. He told me I lasted about 2 minutes without stopping my jerking and spasms, until he let the rope become slack. I was so dazed I did not feel him loosening the noose at first. Afterwards it hurt, badly. Headache and rope burn in spite of the sweater padding. I had to wear a turtleneck for 2 weeks. It was so wonderful, but never again. I totally lost myself.

The first time I ever strangled another woman, I had just graduated from high school. She was older than me (34) and very beautiful. She called me her baby girl. When we were first making love, I would pay much attention to her long neck especially her soft throat. Her larynx was small and feminine but noticable. I played with it, stroking it with my fingers and kissing it...this kind of play always turned her on.

We began to gently strangle each other after a while...nothing really heavy though...more like caresses really. One day she handed me a new silk scarf that she had just purchased and asked me to strangle her with it. That got me wet immediately and we went to the bedroom so we could watch this delicate operation in her triple panelled mirror she used for dressing.

I passed it around her graceful neck, my heart beating fast and my hands shaking a bit and gently began began to pull the scarf from both ends. She wanted it tighter so I pulled it tighter...my eyes glued to her neck, watching the scarf press up against her larynx. God, was this ever hot!! We did this for a while until she had an explosive orgasm. During it, her legs gave out so I immediately removed the scarf and tried to hold on to her but she slipped from my grasp. On the floor she squirmed around, still coming. My own clit was enveloped in flames of hot cum...what an experience! We went back to our safer way of strangling but that one is burned in my memory.

Mmmmm!!
(female poster):

Well first of all NEVER do it alone. If you pass out while hanging you DIE. You must have someone there to let you down just in case you go too far. Brain damage begins roughly around 4 minutes plus. It varies how long a person can hang some just a matter of a few seconds other upwards of two minutes. I have hanged for real and it is the greatest thing ever.

First I felt an incredible pounding in my head and chest. then my head began to tingle and mys vission tunnel. The I got the greatst rush ever. I like to go til I pass out then have a partner let me down. More then what I said above can not be put into words.

Now is dispel some myths.

1. Some stories here in have the rope tightening slowly while the person hangs. When a person is hanged the rope tightens in less then a second or two. No breath is possible and no speech is either.

2. A person cannot go the length of time like some of the stories here. I read where one woman hanged in a story was still kicking after 20 minutes. Medically not possible she would be brain dead long before this. A person can hang no longer without passing out than they could hold thier breath without passing out.

3. a person does not urinate or defficate upon passing out at ropes end unless they try. They may do it out of fear. The urination and deffication comes when the mucsles relax at death. In hanging this does not happen all the time right away at least.

4. People do not always cum when hanging. This is a result of sexual arousal on the part of the person being hanged.

Chat session reproduced on old PNN regarding autoerotic hanging of females [Airdancer is an exotic dancer; sequences rearranged so the chat makes better sense.]

Marcia : He pulls me up far enough that my feet leave the ground. Have any of you tried that before?

airdancer : are your hands tied behind your back?

Marcia : Sometimes my hands are tied. If they are, I only last for 10 or 15 seconds.

hang : Marcia: for how long can you hang?

Marcia : Well, until I've had enough, when I get close to passing out.

airdancer : I hang about once a week or so, even in my stage act

airdancer : as I said my bf "punishes" me for being bad, and I am always BAD!!!

Marcia : I recall that you've said in the past that you sometimes have hung for a long time. Do you use a special technique?

airdancer : If you use a thick rope and put the knot in front you can last much longer. the thicker the rope the more it spreads out the pain and pressure, and you choke slower.

Marcia : So that your head is back?

airdancer : yes the head is back

Mandy : What about marks on the skin ?

airdancer : I use a soft nylon marine rope to reduce marks

Marcia : The softer, the better!

airdancer : oh hell yes, a soft cloth is best, like smooth cotton

airdancer : OK now guys I take to the air and WOW it hits you hard at first. My bf pulls out the stool when I least expect it after getting me on my tippy toes, Your jaw kind of clinches up and the pain and pressure on your neck are real hard. I lasted for over a minute the other day.

Marcia : A minute?

hardrock : OK, so, AD. you hit the air, the noose hits you and then what??

airdancer : like I said your jaw clenches and you feel this incredible pressure on your neck and your feet kick like hell to find the ground

hardrock : do you feel panic when the air shut off?

airdancer : panic and fear set in, even as many times as I done this

Marcia : And the kicking stresses your neck too.

airdancer : you just want to find solid ground

Marcia : Panic? Oh yes, panic!

airdancer : the pain in the neck grows as you kick and you feel pain when your body is deprived of oxygen, your arms and legs begin to ache, your head pounds

hardrock : how long does that take?

airdancer : and your ears ring

Marcia : Not very long, in my case.

airdancer : at about 20 sec the pain in your limbs is real intense and you start to feel very tired. all you want to do is fight the rope and find some solid ground but you slowly start to dim out

Marcia : Only for a little while, does muscle clenching help.

airdancer : you reach a point where you cannot get air at all then you really ache all over

airdancer : I always fill my bladder before hanging so I lose control and piss while in the air

hardrock : damn! how do you cum with all that going on??

Marcia : Who has time to cum?

airdancer : you don't really cum until afterwards

hardrock : well, I've seen pics............

Marcia : ?

airdancer : the last thing I usually feel is the piss running down my legs and then it's blackout time. My bf cuts me down real quick to revive me

airdancer : usually takes about 15 minutes to fully revive and fell somewhat good.

hardrock : do you have a headache afterwards?

airdancer : yes headache and neckache

Marcia : I think you hang much longer than I do.

airdancer : the longer you do this the better you get at it

hardrock : that takes TRUST!!

fitz : AD how long do you hang?

airdancer : sometime for over a minute, but usually less. when I blackout it is at the minute mark

hardrock : well, I still like to try it with somebody that I trusted to know what they are doing

fitz : I did a minute or so a few days ago, but not to blackout

airdancer : but if you ever blacked out you have that wonderful peaceful feeling when you wake up

From a posting to alt.sex.stories, by a "swinging" couple (in a different sense of the word!):

I'm different from most of the women I've met in the hanging scene. The vast majority of these are either submissives or masochists who were introduced to erotic hanging after they had been in their scene for some time, by a lover or master. For the longest time I was the only one I could find who actually had been turned on by hanging before being introduced to the SM/BD scene.

I had a fairly normal if slightly repressive childhood. I was blissfully unaware of the entire aspect of sex until it became the one only thing to talk about in school. Most of it misinformation. I tried masturbation seriously when I turned 13 but either I couldn't reach orgasm or the end result seemed somehow weak compared to what the rumor mill had said it would be. ...

At thirteen ... My defining moment came when I was a spy scoping out the enemy's (the boys') headquarters in the poolhouse. [She is caught sneaking in to steal their plans for a waterballoon attack. To keep her from escaping they tie her, stand her on a stool, and put a venetian blind cord around her neck.].

Before I knew it he had fitted the loop over my head and cinched it around my throat.

"There", he said in triumph. "She can't go anywhere. If she steps off the stool she'll hang herself. We can leave her alone now."

Jean and Marsha both looked dubious and I tried to sway them with my pleas and promises to not run away, but the three boys convinced them I would be all right so off they went.

I yelled and called after them but to no avail. Finally I just took stock of my situation. My wrists were snugly tied behind me. The stool was sturdy. The loop of cord had a little play in it but not much. I was in no danger if I just stood there. My only hope was that one of my team would find me and release me before they came back.

As if in answer to my prayer, I heard the door push open. It was only Winter, my cousin's huge friendly white Samoyed. He was obviously looking for me since we were good friends and he heard me yelling. I called to him and he came over smiling at me.

Then disaster struck. As was his way, Winter jumped up for a cuddle...bouncing into me unprepared and knocking the stool and me over!

I dropped a few inches before the loop of cord jerked tight around my neck sending a shock through my whole body. I found myself hanging by my neck a good foot off the ground. The cord was thin and bit in deeply cutting off my breath. Terrified I tried desperately to get my wrists free but with no results. I began to kick trying to get back on the stool, only succeeding in kicking it much farther from me and sending both my shoes flying off. The lack of oxygen quickly made me light headed and my vision started turning red. I realized later that I succumbed so quickly because the thinness of the cord had allowed it to bite down deeper and quicker and close off my breathing and circulation.

To my amazement I felt a surge beginning in my groin as my lungs seemed to burst in agony. My last experience was a thundering orgasm and then... blackness.

I awoke in the emergency room with a very sore throat, splitting headache, bloody wrists and a nasty rope burn on my neck. Apparently it was Winter who saved me. His barking and howling brought one of the neighbors who found me bound and hanging and cut me down. The doctor estimated that I couldn't have been hanging more than a few minutes since I hadn't lost bowel and bladder control.

My cousins were all in terrible trouble but I stayed overnight in the hospital. Late that night I thought again of the sensation of being bound and helpless hanging there and the remarkable orgasm that I knew I would have to experience again. I was hooked!

I experimented with soft materials such as scarves and nylon stockings but all of them would leave a mark and I was terrified of actually hanging again. I tried choking myself but that just didn't work. There was something about hanging the re bound and helpless, slowly strangling at the end of a rope that was inexplicable.

I found a pair of play cufflinks in a toy store and hatched a plan. They would give just enough sensation of being bound but still allow me to get loose. I decided to try a "safe" hanging.

I waited for my Mom to go shopping while Dad was at work. I took off my clothes and put on my pleated skirt and best rayon blouse. I didn't bother with underwear. Just the feeling of not wearing panties under my skirt made me tingle. I got a pair of my mothers good seamed nylons in a dark brown directly out of the box and put them on. They were a little large and wouldn't stay up, but they felt wonderful on my legs and the feel of the nylon rubbing back and forth made me feel sexy. Since all my mother wore were panty girdles which looked yucky, I used a couple of rubber bands as garters.

Next I got a hand towel from the bathroom and my mother's longest silk scarf.

I took all these down to the basement where we had a bunch of exposed pipes

on the ceiling. I got a milk cartoon and turned it upside down below the thickest pipe. I carefully wrapped the towel around my neck holding it in place by tying the scarf around my neck behind my right ear. I pulled the scarf over the pipe until it felt snug around my neck and tied it off. Next I took the handcuffs and snapped them on one wrist. They had a plastic key but there was also a button you could push to release them. I snapped them on the other wrist behind me.

Now I stood there and began to feel the excitement grow. I was bound and noosed and about to be hanged. I felt the glow in my groin and became ever more excited.

I moved to the end of the box and experimentally tried to reach the floor. I got less than halfway before the scarf tightened to the point that it pushed my head over on the side. The feeling of it cutting off my circulation and breath was enough to start the wonderful glow coursing through me body. I experimented a half dozen times more feeling more and more sexy closer and closer to orgasm.

I knew I wanted to step off the box, have my orgasm and step back on but I had to be careful not to kick the box away.

With infinite care I stepped off with my right foot...then my left. I was hanging! All the sensations I longed for were there. The helplessness of being bound. The feeling of the noose cutting off my air and the pounding of my pulse in my ears as my circulation was impaired. But more than that, the building orgasm threatening to tear me apart. I waited and waited, willing myself not to kick and push the box away, waiting for the orgasm to crest. Finally, unfulfilled I stepped back up. My head was pounding and my breath hoarse. I felt like my head was a giant balloon, but I had come so close.

I stood there a few more minutes until I felt close to normal and tried it again. This time I stayed on the noose longer and almost came, but the graying of my vision and my aching lungs forced me to step back up.

Again I waited and fretted. Even with the towel I was sure I would end up with rope burns again. But I was so close I had to try one more time. I took a deep breath and stepped off for the third time.

This time it felt like I was almost floating, weightless. I could still feel the discomfort from the noose, my lungs aching for air, the pounding in my ears, but as I hanged there I knew it would happen. And this time it did! I was filled with an overwhelming, crashing , thunderous orgasm, which ebbed delightfully into darkness.

I awoke on the floor. I had passed out and hanged there until the scarf had frayed and finally parted, sending me crashing into a pile of cardboard boxes filled with old linens. These had luckfully cushioned my fall. My head was aching and my throat was sore, but my entire body was tingling. I released my wrists from the handcuffs and found that I had cum so hard that the front of my skirt was soaked. It was so wet I thought at first that I had peed yself.

As my daze wore off I realized just how fortunate I was. If the scarf had not parted I would have strangled to death. I could just imagine my mother finding my hanging body wearing her good nylons, handcuffed and dangling by her scarf from that pipe.

Responses to the above posting:

I have to say something here and partly from a bit of excitement. In the first report (or the first part of the report) I have experienced and completely agree with the girl. I had seen a movie called the Linguini Incident and got the idea of play hanging from the foot of my bed. I thought it would be a heck of a neat trick to be able to do. Especially for Halloween parties or something. I guess I just somehow knew to use a large rope because I figured that a thin one would be more painful, although I admit I've never tried a thin one. Anyway, I put the noose around my neck and tightened it. Then I tied it to the hook. Looking back, I see that by doing it this way I didn't allow for any extra rope. I remember I then started to step off the bed one foot at a time. Now one foot on the bed and one foot off was no problem. So after allowing one foot to dangle for awhile, I finally let the other slide off too. The first was one brief swing then back up on the bed. I kept doing this over a few times until some of the fear was gone. Then I decided to see how long I could actually hang. The girl in the report is exactly right when she said the knot tightens quickly. I do remember that quite well because I kept wanting to loosen it again each time I was standing on the bed, but it never did any good. It kept tightening real quick like. So I took a deep breath and gently stepped off the bed again. I knew I was swinging because I could see my shadow on my white closet doors across from me. The knot had tightened almost under my right chin but not all the way because I could still see in front of me. I had started with putting the knot behind my head but it instantly tightened almost to the right side. I remember stretching my feet to see if I could touch the floor but I couldn't If someone were to take my precious bed away, I'm like hung real good and I wouldn't be telling you this now. I wasn't keeping time but I'm sure I hung for at least eight to ten seconds.

Now physically, I experienced everything the girl reported above but let me say that the first and worst pain is in the neck. It felt like it was on fire. Even though I used a thick rope. It's like unbearable and darn it, if it wasn't for that, I could have hung there longer without passing out. I don't recall pounding in the chest but I did have it in the head. I remember my ears closing off and my vision fading but I was fully conscious. Now I can also add that my lips felt like they were going to fall off my face and I had what felt like thousands of needles jabbing me in my cheeks and in the top of my head. So I can say that it was really awful but I so much remember getting another glance at my shadow and it looked really neat. It's actually the thing I remember best. You guys would have liked it too. My head was bent over to my left shoulder and stuff. I guess I should mention that my hands were not tied but I never tried to reach up to the rope around my neck. I don't know what my arms and legs were doing. When I couldn't take it anymore I just stepped back up on the bed. The damn knot also got a number of strands of my hair too as I loosened it. That hurt as well. So the difference about all this with me is that I did not do this for sexual purposes or pleasures. That never even crossed my mind at the time and I didn't even think in those terms. I am now but gee, looking back, if I'd have stayed hung and for some reason couldn't have gotten down (like if you fellas sneeked into my room and stole my bed!!), what a waste that would've been, huh? Left all alone just hanging there like that without any reason. Not even for suicide. Eeeek!

We've done it by having the victim step off a chair with a rope which already has your neck stretched so you do not fall, at least not more than the one or two inches it takes to tighten the rope. Also using a stiff rope helps. First we tried a soft noose thinking this would hurt less but soft things tighten too much. Just like was said, first I felt a terrible pounding in my head and my bosom then my brain kind of tingles and I was really scared when I found I was helpless. I had my hands tied behind me and when I found I couldn't breathe it was terrifying but it is really the greatest rush imaginable.
The erect nipples come before the hanging ever starts. Just thinking about it will cause nipple erection, if you're not too scared, I guess. If not that then taking off your clothes, or better yet having them taken off and having your hands tied. Its not the hanging that does it its the sexual anticipation.

 From a newsgroup devoted to suicide (names deleted):

(male) (1/31/98)

About 20 years ago, I tried to do a swingcide. I got scared so bad that I've never thought about offing myself ever since. [First two attempts, ending with broken ropes, deleted]

....

The third attempt, I tied the rope to a tree in the back yard. I kicked the stool out from under me, and I felt myself drop, and then I saw millions of stars, and I

heard this loud "Ghaaack!" and everything went black. I could feel myself swinging. .... In the background, I could hear a human voice going, "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" I felt myself drop again, I hit heavily on the ground on my side, and then all the light came swimming back in. My next door neighbor was standing over me with a machete. He had cut the rope. ... I wrenched my neck pretty badly, it took several weeks for the burn marks to go away. I shitted and pissed myself while I was hanging there.

(male) 8-9-2001

Well, if anyone here is maintaining "dif's list of complete failures" please add "suicide" to that list. I've messed around with suspension hanging a bit to test it, but this was the second time that I seriously tried to die with it. I don't know where the hell this "unconciousness in 3 seconds" comes from, I went for 45-60 seconds with much more than the 12 lbs or whatever it required to compress the carotid artery. After 10-12 seconds I would feel a bit faint, but then nothing (until about 40 seconds, when my neck starts to hurt like hell).

(female) 10/9/98

I personally like the idea of a slow hanging, except for the pain to the neck mucsles. (I know, I'm weird, but for me it's a sexual turn on. <G>) If you arrange the rope length so that you are hung, yet still have most of your weight supported by your legs, you can successfully die and, if you self stimulate, can have a hell of an orgasm on the way out with very little neck pain.

(male) 2/14/98

I put the rope around my neck and pulled on it has hard as I could to see what it would feel like and after about 20 seconds my head felt like it was gonna explode. After I let the rope go loose my whole body felt really strange.

(female, 19 yr old) 2-24-2002

I've read several posts in this ng about hanging oneself. Here's why I won't try hanging myself again. I've tried to do it three times.

All three times have some things in common. I made a rope (the oldfashioned way, like you can see in cowboy movies, from very thick and sturdy cord) and attached it to the ceiling. Beneath that, I put a chair. I made sure that while hanging there, my feet would not reach the ground. I got a big garbage bag to put over my head and a belt to seal it off, so I would have breathing air for a couple of minutes only. I took a cord in which I made two nooses to bind my hands behind my back: they would automatically fasten themselves when I would get my hands further away from each other.

The first time, I didn't do anything special. Bag over the head, belt around the neck, rope around my neck, hands through the nooses, fasten the nooses, kick away the chair and I hung myself. It worked quite well, it became black before my eyes. The feeling was terrible, though. My hands hurt, my neck hurt, not being able to breath was terrible. I lost consciousness. But, after some time, more than an hour, I woke up. I didn't die. I don't know why. It took me a long time to free myself. I had headaches and a sore neck for more than a week.

I guessed I was too strong for this approach, so the second time, weeks later, I got the preparations ready. But this time, I made sure I was as drunk as possible, almost passing out. Instead of a belt, I used a noose in a rope to get the bag tighter around my neck. This time, it worked better than the first time. I passed out for almost two hours. When I woke up again, I had to vomit, right in the bag. It was even more horrible than the first time. . . .

Almost two years later, I tried again. This time was the same as the second, plus that I used sleeping pills and got drunk and I hung a lot of weight to my belt, something like 30 kilograms of books and bottles with water. I survived again and again, I felt horrible for weeks.

So, I lost consciousness three times, my neck and head hurt like hell, but I didn't die.

(male, 1994:)

i lost consciousness just before being found and cut down; no more than three minutes had elapsed from the moment when my throat was constricted.

i used an electrical cord, knotted at one point, with the knot on the far side of the door. the cord goes over the door, near the hinges. you shut the door, and keep the cord close to the hinge side so you don't pull the door off the hinges.

the electrical cord stretched so that my feet were flat on the ground. my heels were less than an inch off the ground. once the cord constricted on my neck, the plastic bound up against itself. the effect of this was that as i stood up on my tiptoes and tried to pry my fingers between my neck and the cord, i was unable. it was as though the cord was locked tight. before i could make any progress removing the cord from my neck, my arms got heavy and fell to my sides. my vision lasted for quite a bit longer.

i was trying to pry the cord away from my neck because it was very painful, much more so than i had expected. it caused my whole body to ache... probably something to do with blood pressure. it was very painful. also i became frightened and

wanted to stop and reconsider what i was doing. fortunately for me, my wife had heard the stool fall and woke up, coming into the back room and eventually cutting me down. by that time i had lost consciousness. the next thing i knew, i had woken up on the floor with jarring pain running throughout my body, especially my arms, hands and head. this pain lasted for maybe fifteen minutes. it was very very unpleasant. also, i had a dark red line across my neck for over a week.