The Pit and the Pendulum and you find an appeal to the nerves by tawdry physical affrightments." The Pit and the Pendulum "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual "The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843". The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such
Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition that often were investigated together. Acusers tended to throw "witchcraft" or other vague accusations into the mix, along with legitimate claims. Those cases in which witchcraft was trialed along with other, serious accusations, are sometime reported as "trials of witchcraft by the inquisition". For example, Eleno de Céspedes was accused of witchcraft during his trial for "bigamy", and is often reported as "having been trialed for witchcraft by the inquisition", even if he was taken to court for different reasons, the accusation of witchcraft was thrown in during the trial by one of the court´s witnesses, recorded as the system