Royal Enarees

Among the Scythians, at least according to the Greek writer Herodotus, diviners were held in high regard. The 'enarees' or 'man-women' used strips of linden bark, woven together, to divine the answer to many questions of past, present and future, and of this world and the next. They would advise kings on the best course of action, and act as judges when a man’s word was called into question. Divination was not an easy job, and a terrible punishment awaited any diviners who gave false judgement in the case of solemn oaths sworn 'on the hearth of the king'. Such failed enarees would be bound, hand and foot, placed in an ox cart filled with brushwood, and the mobile pyre would be set alight. The oxen would run off in terror, and might die from burns as well, but the diviner was certainly cooked alive. The same punishment was reserved for 'false prophets' as well as poor judges among the diviners, a useful sanction for keeping them honest.