Fascinating and weird, Ken.

Another one for you all.  This was told to me by a psychiatrist as the
origin of the saying `pulling your leg' (ie. having a joke at
someone's expense - not sure if the idiom is used in America, forgive
the explanation if it is)  When they used to hang people, often the
neck of the person being hanged wouldn't break immediately, so in order
to spare them the torment of taking a long time to die, the friends of
the hangee (?!) would wait at the front of the crowd and as soon as
the hangee dropped, his/her friends would rush forward to grab the
legs and pull down sharply to finish things quickly.  Hence
(apparently) the saying `I'm pulling your leg'.   Of course the
psychiatrist may have been `pulling' mine when he told me this -
wouldn't be surprised, the guy wasn't all there if you ask me!!

Rayna