BOURKE. ] MAGICAL CORDS AND KNOTS. BYCCT 
A variant of the same formula is to be found in Frangois Lenormant’s 
Chaldean Magic.'! Lenormant speaks of the Chaldean use of “magic 
knots, the efficacy of which was so firmly believed in even up to the 
middle ages.” 
Again, he says that magic cords, with knots, were ‘ still very common 
among the Nabathean sorcerers of the Lower Euphrates,” in the four- 
teenth century, and in his opinion the use of these was derived from 
the ancient Chaldeans. In still another place he speaks of the “magic 
knots” used by Finnish conjurors in curing diseases. 
“The Jewish phylactery was tied in a knot, but more generally knots 
are found in use to bring about some enchantment or disenchantment. 
Thus in an ancient Babylonian charm we have— 
‘Merodach, the son of Hea, the prince, with his holy hands cuts the knots. 
That is to say, he takes off the evil influence of the knots. So, 
too, witches sought in Scotland to compass evil by tying knots. 
Witches, it was thought, could supply themselves with the milk of 
any neighbor’s cows if they had a small quantity of hair from the tail 
of each of the animals. The hair they would twist into a rope and then 
a knot would be tied on the rope for every cow which had contributed 
hair. Under the clothes of a witch who was burned at St. Andrews, in 
1572, was discovered ‘a white claith, like a collore craig, with stringis, 
wheron was mony knottis vpon the stringis of the said collore eraig. 
When this was taken from her, with a prescience then wrongly inter- 
preted, she said: ‘Now I have no hope of myself’ ‘Belyke scho 
thought,’ runs the cotemporary account, ‘scho suld not have died, 
that being vpon her,’ but probably she meant that to be discovered 
with such an article in her possession was equivalent to the sentence of 
death. So lately as the beginning of the last century, two persons 
were sentenced to capital punishment for stealing a charm of knots, 
made by a woman as a device against the welfare of Spalding of 
Ashintilly.”? 
“Charmed belts are commonly worn in Lancashire for the cure of 
rheumatism. Elsewhere, a cord round the loins is worn to ward off 
toothache. Is it possible that there is any connection between this 
belt and the cord which in Burmah is hung round the neck of a 
possessed person while he is being thrashed to drive out the spirit 
which troubles him? Theoretically the thrashing is given to the 
spirit, and not to the man, but to prevent the spirit escaping too soon 
a charmed cord is hung round the possessed person’s neck. When the 
spirit has been sufficiently humbled and has declared its name it may 
be allowed to escape, if the doctor does not prefer to trample on the 
patient’s stomach till he fancies he has killed the demon.’* 
“The numerous notices in the folklore of all countries of magic stones, 
holy girdles, and other nurses’ specials, attest the common sympathy of 
the human race.”* 
1P. 41. 3 Ibid., (after Tylor) pp. 176, 177. 
? Black, Folk-Medicine, p. 186. 4 Tbid,, p. 178- 
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