Thank you for the colourful responses. I just love old folktales like these. The sillier the better.

Rapaire, I've never confessed it anywhere before but I once came upon a book about old methods of torture that I couldn't not read. I was about 15 I think. Morbid curiosity with me too. I've never been moved to try anything I learned from it and I'm still haunted by some of the images it conjured up. Some methods of execution were just as silly as the fish-on-the-head one now I come to think of it.

But yes, a movie idea is probable. The film came from a book so it might have started there. The villagers in the film said something about the idea being a good one because it relieved them of the responsibility of doing the deed themselves. The "geese" did it.
By the way the victim was caught out dobbing everyone in to the excise men. Cheers, Joy