# Odd beheading incident -- possible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 7, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049 "2010-01-07T18:31:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/21 "2010-01-07T19:24:53Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Also, it would be very difficult to cleanly behead someone standing upright, even with a very sharp sword, as the neck has muscles going in several directions. Even if an executioner could direct the blade between vertebrae… Agree that this would be difficult at best. Anybody who thinks this is possible should buy a turkey at the grocery store, suspend the neck, and try slicing through it with a single blow through the air with the sharpest knife you can find. Maybe we could send this to MythBusters and they’ll try it with a pig head. They did something like that to show that a cable suddenly released from high tension couldn’t slice a person (or dead pig, rather) in half. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/22 "2010-01-07T19:34:07Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > It is not clear where the author could possibly have gotten such a dramatic and detailed account of the execution if not from Sanson’s own writings. In that light it’s somewhat amusing that the younger Sanson chides other authors for making up stories about this execution: > [@](#): > > This unprecedented incident has been taken up by chroniclers, and all kinds of stories in prose and verse have been invented thereon. They are all inaccurate. An unscrupulous writer has even asserted that my grandfather, proud of his success, turned to the crowd and said: > ‘Was it not a fine blow?’ > It is my duty, in justice to my grandfather and to our sinister corporation, to contradict these shameless words, which would have soiled even the lips of a headsman. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/23 "2010-01-07T19:40:41Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I assume you mean that the body collapses if the spinal cord is severed or brain stem is damaged. Yeah. I was thinking of the infamous VC Officer gets executed video, but I’ve seen others. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/24 "2010-01-07T19:40:59Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Also, it would be very difficult to cleanly behead someone standing upright, even with a very sharp sword, as the neck has muscles going in several directions. Even if an executioner could direct the blade between vertebrae, the release of tension of the muscles would cause the head to shift. > > Stranger Wasn’t Anne Boelyn beheaded like this? (Well, I think she was kneeling, but upright). But then, she did have a slender neck… > **[Anne Boleyn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_boelyn)** > > Anne Boleyn (/ˈbʊlɪn, bʊˈlɪn/;\[c\] c. 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading for treason, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the English Reformation. > Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn (later Earl of Wiltshire), and his wife, Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France. Anne returned to En... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/25 "2010-01-07T19:47:19Z")
An incident almost identical to that recounted in the OP refers to is told by Ambrose Bierce in his **Devil’s Dictionary**. I don’t recall the entry, but I don’t think it’s “beheadings”, and I don’t have my copy here with me. Obviously, the version told my Bierce is not meant to be taken seriously, and it goes farther than the story the OP tells – but it uses very nearly the same language. The executioner, a swordsman of great skill, made a number of passes in great sweeping arcs, like a martial artist does in showing off, and on one such pass sliced through the air near the prisoner. Afterwards, the prisoner said he didn’t feel anything, and the executioner told him to press his nostrils together and blow. Everyone expected the prisoner’s head to fly off. To everyone’s surprise – especially the executioner’s – it didn’t. "I apologize, said the executioner to the king, "But in my passes the sword must have gone through my own neck, and this slowed it down so much that it did not pass through the prisoner. he then took off his own head and, kneeling down, presented it to the monarch. It’s possible that **gytalf2000** read this version and misremembered it. Or it could be that both he/she and Bierce read the same original (I certainly suspect that Bierce didn’t make up the whole story, but is riffing on an older “tall tale”), and that accounts for the similarity. But I think both this version and any possible original are “tall tales”. Even experienced executioners with a heavy sword or axe were said to often take multiple blows to remove a head. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/26 "2010-01-07T19:55:29Z")
Hah! Here it is, under **Scimitar** : > [@](#): > > SCIMITAR, n. A curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of which certain Orientals attain a surprising proficiency, as the incident here related will serve to show. The account is translated from the Japanese by Shusi Itama, a famous writer of the thirteenth century. > > ``` > When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer of the Court. Soon after the hour appointed for performance of the rite what was his Majesty's surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man who should have been at that time ten minutes dead! > > "Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!" shouted the enraged monarch. "Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and have your head struck off by the public executioner at three o'clock? And is it not now 3:10?" > > "Son of a thousand illustrious deities," answered the condemned minister, "all that you say is so true that the truth is a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty's sunny and vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I ran and placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The executioner appeared with his bare scimetar, ostentatiously whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable and treasonous head." > > "To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled > caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado. > > "To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh – I know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi." > > "Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the Presence. > > "Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!" roared the sovereign – "why didst thou but lightly tap the neck that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?" > > "Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner, unmoved, "command him to blow his nose with his fingers." > > Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted like an elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung violently from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered peacefully to the close, without incident. > > All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled and his breath came in gasps of terror. > > "Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!" he cried; "I am a ruined and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly because in flourishing the scimitar I had accidentally passed it through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office." > > So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet. > > ``` > **[Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce](http://fun-with-words.com/devil_s3.html)** ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/27 "2010-01-07T20:01:58Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > How did you know what Shodan was going to say in the following post?! :eek: > > Eerie … Shodan is sometimes a cut above the rest. In this case, just under the chin _by about that muuuch_. Anyway you slice it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/28 "2010-01-07T20:11:41Z")
Historical European Martial Arts practioner checking in: Could a swordsman behead someone with a sword in a single stroke? Absolutely. I’ve seen Longswords cut through a friggin’ deer carcass like it was butter. Note: it takes skill (something a French knight would likely have in spades). Would the condemned be standing upright? Yes. I feel that kneeling (and not bowing) or standing would be preferred by the executioner, and I believe there are accounts of this (though I’ll have to dig them up). I can see how with an axe, kneeling and bowing would be the easiest way to assure a clean cut, but with a sword a standing target would be the most natural one. Could the head remain attached to the body? Unlikely, but I don’t think it would be impossible. I would liken it to someone pulling the table cloth from under a table setting. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest. The cut would have to be very clean and I suppose it might have had to have landed between vertebrae. Could the victim retain control over his body? As mentioned above, no way. But I can see how a slow tumble downward right after the cut might be perseived as something else by the spectators. ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/29 "2010-01-07T20:12:04Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Shodan is sometimes a cut above the rest. In this case, just under the chin _by about that muuuch_. Anyway you slice it. > > 😃 Yes, he usually is, but you’re a head above him this time. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/30 "2010-01-07T20:34:16Z")
When standing/kneeling, CG of the head rests in front of the neck, doesn’t it? I don’t think it’d be easy for a severed head to rest there for any length of time without tumbling off, shaking or no. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/31 "2010-01-07T20:41:20Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > I’ve seen Longswords cut through a friggin’ deer carcass like it was butter. Note: it takes skill (something a French knight would likely have in spades). This astonishes me, in light of the thickness of the body, not to mention the bone. Do you suppose there is a video of this kind of thing online somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/32 "2010-01-07T20:44:05Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I believe this is more or less physiologically impossible - severing the nerves would make it impossible for a person with a severed head to initiate movement in the extremities. > > I remember reading the same thing, but it was some medieval legend or other. I thought _Gawaine and the Green Knight_, but that isn’t it. > > Regards, > Shodan I have [proof](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JUGflGwM14) that it is possible! ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/33 "2010-01-07T20:49:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I’m guessing this is an apocryphal legend that popular repute has attached to a well-known execution. It seems deeply implausible even knowing nothing about weaponry or the period. Sucks to be the Chevalier, though: at the age of 20 he was tortured, had his tongue cut out, and was then beheaded and then - in case the authorities had not made their point - was burned. According to Voltaire, he was falsely accused of blasphemous vandalism and also had some porn in his room. I guess he could not say “Hey, I’m a 20-year-old Frenchman!” as a defense. Pretty much has to be a legend, at least in part - tongueless men offer no _bon mots_ to their executioners. ---
**Author:** ![TerpBE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@TerpBE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TerpBE)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/34 "2010-01-07T21:01:53Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Near the end of the book, the author includes what are alledgedly several pages from Sanson’s diary, though the diary entries don’t cover this episode. It is not clear where the author could possibly have gotten such a dramatic and detailed account of the execution if not from Sanson’s own writings. Maybe Jean-François Lefevre de la Barre wrote about it in his diary. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/35 "2010-01-07T21:12:37Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > This astonishes me, in light of the thickness of the body, not to mention the bone. Do you suppose there is a video of this kind of thing online somewhere? I Do! And I’ve seen others online as well. If I can’t find it here, I’ll dig one up online when I get home from work tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/36 "2010-01-07T21:14:14Z")
**Marley23** said: > [@](#): > > Here’s another guy telling the story: Actually, it is a different book but the same author, Geoffrey Abbott. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/37 "2010-01-07T21:21:25Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > This astonishes me, in light of the thickness of the body, not to mention the bone. Do you suppose there is a video of this kind of thing online somewhere? [Here’s one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4j3mvrDyQ), but it isn’t as impressive as it sounds. One of cleanly cutting off a deer’s head in [one stroke](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYCq9pIB0sc). ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/38 "2010-01-07T21:26:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Here’s another guy telling the story: [Geoffrey Abbott in 2006’s _Execution_: the Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death.](http://books.google.com/books?id=5jDk9fI45XgC&pg=PA250&lpg=PA250&dq=%22de+la+barre%22+%22shake+yourself%22&source=bl&ots=IQf0OtGS1M&sig=WHaxVM8PBbEIkvmVS0z2fBofnIw&hl=en&ei=vS5GS-G4KMTJlAeBgp0Y&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22de%20la%20barre%22%20%22shake%20yourself%22&f=false) > Too bad the knight didn’t think to stall the execution by asking for watermelons when they were out of season. I’m not sure what Abbott’s source is here. Yes, this is the story that I read a couple years back; thanks for the reference. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/39 "2010-01-07T23:35:28Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Actually, it is a different book but the same author, Geoffrey Abbott. Ah. I couldn’t view that second page originally. So we have one person telling the story twice, probably embellishing the Sanson account. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049/40 "2010-01-08T00:28:11Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > How did you know what Shodan was going to say in the following post?! :eek: > > Eerie … **Gam Zeh Yaavor** ’s post was at 5:36 (my time). **Shodan** ’s response was at 5:38. **Gam Zeh Yaavor** ’s post was “last edited at 5:39.” No time travel required. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-beheading-incident-possible/524049.md?page=3)