The park's glory is tarnished by the fact that its pin oaks, oriental planes, yellow locusts, ashes, and American elms once were used as gallows trees from which men swung for such crimes as burglary, pickpocketing, and having the wrong skin color.
Several towns had gallows trees for the victims including Croscombe in Devon.
The roads were still far from safe, and many tragedies were enacted in lonely places, and in cases of murder the culprit, when caught, was often hanged or gibbeted near the spot where the crime was committed, and many gallows trees were still to be seen on the sides of the highways on which murderers had met with their well-deserved fate.
On their way they would pass a fearsome array of gallows trees and instruments of torture.
The passage runs as follows: ‘I know that I hung full nine nights on the gallows tree wounded by the javelin and given to Othin, myself to myself; on that tree, of which no one knows from whose roots it proceeds.’
Definition of gallows tree in US English:
gallows tree
nounˈɡalōz trē
another term for gallows
Example sentencesExamples
Several towns had gallows trees for the victims including Croscombe in Devon.
The roads were still far from safe, and many tragedies were enacted in lonely places, and in cases of murder the culprit, when caught, was often hanged or gibbeted near the spot where the crime was committed, and many gallows trees were still to be seen on the sides of the highways on which murderers had met with their well-deserved fate.
The park's glory is tarnished by the fact that its pin oaks, oriental planes, yellow locusts, ashes, and American elms once were used as gallows trees from which men swung for such crimes as burglary, pickpocketing, and having the wrong skin color.
On their way they would pass a fearsome array of gallows trees and instruments of torture.
The passage runs as follows: ‘I know that I hung full nine nights on the gallows tree wounded by the javelin and given to Othin, myself to myself; on that tree, of which no one knows from whose roots it proceeds.’