568 MEDICINE-MEN OF THE APACHE. 



among the northern English and Scots, wlio still retain, in a great 

 measure, the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious 

 kind of a knot, a mutual present between the lover and his mistress, 

 which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore 

 called a true-love knot: a name which is not derived, as one would 

 naturally suppose it to be, from the words true and love, but formed 

 from the Danish verb Trulofa, fidem d&amp;lt;&amp;gt;, I plight my troth, or faith. 

 . . . Hence, evidently, the bride favors or the top-knots at marriages, 

 which have been considered as emblems of the ties of duty and affec 

 tion between the bride and her spouse, have been derived.&quot; 



Sir Thomas Browne, in his Vulgar Errors, 2 says &quot; the true-lover s knot 

 is much magnified, and still retained in presents of love among us; 

 which, though in all points it doth not make out, had, perhaps, its 

 original from .Nodus Herculauus, or that which was called Hercules, his 

 knotresembling the snaky complications in the caduceus or rod of Hermes 

 and in which form the zone or woolen girdle of the bride was fastened, 

 as Turnebus observes in his Adversaria.&quot; Brand shows 3 that the 

 true-lover s knot had to be tied three times. Another species of knot divi 

 nation is given in the Connoisseur, No. 50: &quot; Whenever I go to lye in 

 a strange bed, I al ways tye my garter nine times round the bed-post, 

 and knit nine knots in it, and say to myself: this knot I knit, this 

 knot I tye, to see my love as he goes by, etc. There was also a sugges 

 tion of color symbolism in the true-lover s knot, blue being generally 

 accepted as the most appropriate tint. I find among the illiterate Mex 

 ican population of the lower Kio Grande a firm belief in the power pos 

 sessed by a lock of hair tied into knots to retain a maiden s affections. 



&quot; I find it stated that headache may be alleviated by tying a woman s 

 fillet round the head. 4 To arrest incontinence of urine, the extremities 

 of the generative organs should be tied with a thread of linen or 

 papyrus, and a binding passed round the middle of the thigh. 5 It is 

 cpiiite surprising how much more speedily wounds will heal if they are 

 bound up and tied with a Hercules knot; indeed, it is said that if the. 

 girdle which we wear every day is tied with a knot of this description, 

 it will be productive of certain beneficial effects, Hercules having been 

 the first to discover the fact.&quot; 6 &quot;Healing girdles were already known 

 to Marcellus.&quot; 7 



&quot;In our times tis a common thing, saith Erastus in his book de 

 Lamiis, for witches to take upon them the making of these philters, to 

 force men and women to love and hate whom they will; to cause tem 

 pests, diseases, &c., by charms, spels, characters, knots.&quot; 8 



1 Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 2, pp. 108, 109. 



&amp;gt; Browne, Keligio Medici, p. 392. 



&quot;Brand, op. cit., p. 110. 



4 Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 28, cap. 22. 



6 Ibid., lib. 28, cap. 17. 



6 Ibid. 



7 Grirain, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 3, p. 1169. 



&quot; Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, London, 1827. vol. 1, p. 91; vol. 2, pp. 288. 290. 



