BOURKE. ] ROSARIES AND OTHER CORDS. 561 
Lappes, who sold wind contained in a cord with three knots. If the 
first were untied, the wind became favourable, if the second, still more 
so, but, if the third were loosed, a tempest was the inevitable conse- 
quence.”! The selling of wind knots was ascribed not only to the 
Laps and Finns, but to the inhabitants of Greenland also” ‘The 
northern shipmasters are such dupes to the delusions of these impos- 
tors that they often purchase of them a magic cord which contains a 
number of knots, by opening of which, according to the magician’s di- 
rections, they expect to gain any wind they want.”* “They [Lapland 
witches| further confessed, that while they fastened three knots on a 
linen towel in the name of the devil, and had spit on them, &e., they 
called the name of him they doomed to destruction.” They also 
claimed that, “by some fatal contrivance they could bring on men dis- 
orders,” . . . as “by spitting three times on a knife and anoint- 
ing the victims with that spittle.” * 
Scheffer describes the Laplanders as haying a cord tied with knots 
for the raising of the wind; Brand says the same of the Finlanders, of 
Norway, of the priestesses of the island of Sena, on the coast of Gaul, 
in the time of the Emperor Claudius, the “‘ witches” of the Isle of Man, 
etc.’ 
Maebeth, speaking to the witches, says: 
Though you untie the winds, and let them fight 
Against the churches; though the yesty waves 
Confound and swallow navigation up.® 
ROSARIES AND OTHER MNEMONIC CORDS. 
The rosary being confessedly an aid to memory, it will be proper to 
include it in a chapter descriptive of the different forms of mnemonic 
cords which have been noticed in various parts of the world. The use 
of the rosary is not confined to Roman Catholics; it is in service among 
Mahometans, Tibetans, and Persians.7’ Picart mentions ‘chaplets” 
among the Chinese and Japanese which very strongly suggest the izze- 
kloth.® 
Father Grébillon, in his account of Tartary, alludes several times to 
the importance attached by the Chinese and Tartars to the privilege of 
being allowed to touch the “string of beads” worn by certain Lamas 
met on the journey, which corresponds very closely to the rosaries 
2Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2. p. 640. 
3 Nightingale, quoted in Madden, Shrines and Sepulchres, vol. 1, pp. 557, 558. 
4Leems, Account of Danish Lapland, in Pinkerton, Voyages, London, 1808, vol. 1, p. 471. 
*Brand, Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p.5. See also John Scheffer, Lapland, Oxford, 1674, p. 58. 
6 Act IV, scene 1. 
7 Benjamin, Persia, London, 1877, p. 99. 
8 Cérémonies et Coittumes, vol. 7, p. 320. 
2 Du Halde, History of China, London, 1736, vol. 4, pp. 244, 245, and elsewhere. 
9 ETH 36 
