BOUBKE.) MEDICAL USE OF MAGICAL CORDS. 579 



eminent value still survived in the minds of those who wore it, uncon 

 sciously, though still actively, influencing their thoughts. In perhaps 

 the same way we respect the virtue of red threads, because, as Con- 

 way puts it, red is sacred in one direction as symbolising the blood 

 of Christ.&quot;&quot; 



&quot; To cure ague [Hampshire, England] string nine or eleven snails on 

 a thread, the patient saying, as each is threaded, Here I leave my 

 ague. When all are threaded they should be frizzled over a tire, and 

 as the snails disappear so will the ague.&quot; 2 



Dr. Joseph Lanzoni scoffed at the idea that a red-silk thread could 

 avail in erysipelas; &quot; Xeque lilum sericum cheriuisinum parti affect* 

 circumligatnm erysipelata fugat.&quot; The word &quot;chermesinunr is not 

 given in Aiusworth s Latin-English Dictionary, but it so closely re 

 sembles the Spanish &quot; carmesi &quot; that I have made bold to render it as 

 &quot;red &quot;or &quot;scarlet.&quot; 3 



&quot; Bed thread is symbolical of lightning,&quot; and is consequently laid on 

 churns in Ireland &quot; to prevent the milk from being bewitched and yield 

 ing no butter.&quot; &quot; In Aberdeenshire it is a common practice with the 

 housewife to tie a piece of red worsted thread round the cows tails 

 before turning them out for the first time in the season to grass. It 

 secured the cattle from the evil-eye, elf-shots, and other dangers.&quot; 4 &quot; It 

 [blue] is the sky color and the Druid s sacred colour. &quot; In 1035, a man 

 in the Orkney Islands was, \ve are led to believe, utterly ruined by nine 

 knots cast 011 a blue thread and given to his sister.&quot; 



&quot;In a curious old book, 12mo., 1554, entitled A Short Description of 

 Antichrist, is this passage: I note all their I opishe traditions of cou- 

 tirmacion of yonge children with oynting of oyle and ereame, and with 

 a rni/ge knitte about the necke of the young? babe. 1 &quot; c 



A New England charm for an obstinate ague. The patient in 

 this case is to take a string made of woolen yarn, of three colors, and 

 to go by himself to an apple-tree; there he is to tie his left hand loosely 

 with the right to the tree by the tri-colored string, then to slip his hand 

 out of the knot and run into the house without looking behind him.&quot; 7 



The dust &quot;in which a hawk has bathed itself, tied up in a linen 

 cloth with a red string, and attached to the body,&quot; 3 was one of the reme 

 dies for fevers. Another cure for fever : &quot; Some inclose a caterpillar in 

 a piece of linen, with a thread passed three times round it, and tie as 

 many knots, repeating at each knot why it is that the patient performs 

 that operation.&quot; 9 



&quot; To prevent nose-bleeding people are told to this day to wear a skein 

 of scarlet silk thread round the neck, tied with nine knots down the 

 front; if the patient is a man, the silk being put on and the knots tied 



1 Folk-Medicine, London, 1883, p. 113. * Black, Fiilk-Modicini;, p. 112. 



! Ibid., p. 57. Brand, Pop. Ant., vol. 2, p. 86. 



* EplH-mcriduin Phy.sico-niedicarnm, Leipzig, 7 Black, Folk-Medicine, p. 38. 



1694. vol. 1, p. 49. &quot; Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. 30, cap. . 



4 Black, Folk-iludiciuc, p. 112. Ibid. 



