UNCLASSIFIED SUPERSTITIONS UPON THIS SUBJECT.
In conclusion, I wish to present some of the instances occurring in my studies which apparently have a claim to be included in a treatise upon the subject of sacred cords and knots. These examples are presented without comment, as they are, to all intents and purposes, "survivals," which have long ago lost their true significance. Attention is invited to the fact that the very same use seems to be made by the Irish of hair cords as we have already seen has been made by the Australians.
The Jewish garment with knots at the corners would appear to have been a prehistoric garment preserved in religious ceremonial; it would seem to be very much like the short blanket cloak, with tufts or knots at the four corners, still made by and in use among the Zuñi, Navajo, Tusayan, and Rio Grande Pueblos. But magic knots were by no means unknown to Jews, Assyrians, or other nations of Syria and Mesopotamia.
"In Memorable Things noted in the Description of the World, we read: About children's necks the wild Irish hung the beginning of St. John's Gospel, a crooked nail of a horseshoe, or a piece of a wolve's skin, and both the sucking child and nurse were girt with girdles finely plaited with woman's hair."[688]
Gainsford, in his Glory of England, speaking of the Irish, p. 150, says: "They use incantations and spells, wearing girdles of woman's haire, and locks of their lover's."
Camden, in his Ancient and Modern Manners of the Irish, says that "they are observed to present their lovers with bracelets of women's hair, whether in reference to Venus' cestus or not, I know not."[689] This idea of a resemblance between the girdle of Venus and the use of the maiden's hair may be worth consideration; on the same page Brand quotes from Beaumont and Fletcher:
Bracelets of our lovers' hair,
Which they on our arms shall twist,
and garters of the women were generally worn by lovers.[690]
"Chaque habit qu'ils [the Jews] portent doit avoir quatre pands, & à chacun un cordon pendant en forme de houppe, qu'ils nomment Zizit. Ce cordon est ordinairement de huit fils de laine filée exprès pour cela, avec cinq nœuds chacun, qui occupent la moitié de la longueur. Ce qui n'est pas noué étant éfilé acheve de faire une espece de houppe, qu'ils se fassent, dit la Loi, des cordons aux pands de leurs habits."[691]
The following is from Black:[692]
When Marduk [Assyrian god] wishes to comfort a dying man his father Hea says: "Go—
Take a woman's linen kerchief!
Bind it round thy left hand: loose it from the left hand!
Knot it with seven knots: do so twice:
Sprinkle it with bright wine:
Bind it round the head of the sick man:
Bind it round his hands and feet, like manacles and fetters.
Sit round on his bed:
Sprinkle holy water over him.
He shall hear the voice of Hea.
Davkina shall protect him!
And Marduk, Eldest Son of heaven, shall find him a happy habitation."
A variant of the same formula is to be found in François Lenormant's Chaldean Magic.[693] 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 fourteenth 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 craig.' When this was taken from her, with a prescience then wrongly interpreted, 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."[694]
"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."[695]
"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."[696]
This is from Brand:[697] "Devonshire cure for warts. Take a piece of twine, tie in it as many knots as you have warts, touch each wart with a knot, and then throw the twine behind your back into some place where it may soon decay—a pond or a hole in the earth; but tell no one what you have done. When the twine is decayed your warts will disappear without any pain or trouble, being in fact charmed away."
"In our time, the anodyne necklace, which consists of beads turned out of the root of the white Bryony, and which is hung round the necks of infants, in order to assist their teething, and to ward off the convulsions sometimes incident to that process, is an amulet."[698]
"Rowan, ash, and red thread," a Scotch rhyme goes, "keep the devils frae their speed."[699]
For the cure of scrofula, grass was selected. From one, two, or three stems, as many as nine joints must be removed, which must then be wrapped in black wool, with the grease in it. The person who gathers them must do so fasting, and must then go, in the same state, to the patient's house while he is from home. When the patient comes in, the other must say to him three times, "I come fasting to bring a remedy to a fasting man," and must then attach the amulet to his person, repeating the same ceremony three consecutive days.[700]
Forlong says: "On the 2d [of May], fearing evil spirits and witches, Scotch farmers used to tie red thread upon their wives as well as their cows, saying these prevented miscarriages and preserved the milk."[701]
In Scotland "they hope to preserve the milk of their cows, and their wives from miscarriage, by tying threads about them."[702]
Brand gives a remedy for epilepsy: "If, in the month of October, a little before the full moon, you pluck a twig of the elder, and cut the cane that is betwixt two of its knees, or knots, in nine pieces, and these pieces, being bound in a piece of linnen, be in a thread so hung about the neck that they touch the spoon of the heart, or the sword-formed cartilage."[703]
Black says:[704] "To cure warts a common remedy is to tie as many knots on a hair as there are warts and throw the hair away. Six knots of elderwood are used in a Yorkshire incantation to ascertain if beasts are dying from witchcraft. Marcellus commended for sore eyes that a man should tie as many knots in unwrought flax as there are letters in his name, pronouncing each letter as he worked; this he was to tie round his neck. In the Orkneys, the blue thread was used for an evil purpose because such a colour savored of Popery and priests; in the northern counties it was used because a remembrance of its once preeminent value still survived in the minds of those who wore it, unconsciously, though still actively, influencing their thoughts. In perhaps the same way we respect the virtue of red threads, because, as Conway puts it, 'red is sacred in one direction as symbolising the blood of Christ.'"[705]
"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 fire, and as the snails disappear so will the ague."[706]
Dr. Joseph Lanzoni scoffed at the idea that a red-silk thread could avail in erysipelas; "Neque filum sericum chermisinum parti affectæ circumligatum erysipelata fugat." The word "chermesinum" is not given in Ainsworth's Latin-English Dictionary, but it so closely resembles the Spanish "carmesi" that I have made bold to render it as "red" or "scarlet."[707]
"Red thread is symbolical of lightning," and is consequently laid on churns in Ireland "to prevent the milk from being bewitched and yielding no butter." "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."[708] "It [blue] is the sky color and the Druid's sacred colour."[709] "In 1635, a man in the Orkney Islands was, we are led to believe, utterly ruined by nine knots cast on a blue thread and given to his sister."
"In a curious old book, 12mo., 1554, entitled A Short Description of Antichrist, is this passage: 'I note all their Popishe traditions of confirmacion of yonge children with oynting of oyle and creame, and with a ragge knitte about the necke of the younge babe.'"[710]
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."[711]
The dust "in which a hawk has bathed itself, tied up in a linen cloth with a red string, and attached to the body,"[712] was one of the remedies for fevers. Another cure for fever: "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."[713]
"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 by a woman; and if the patient is a woman, then these good services being rendered by a man."[714]
A cord with nine knots in it, tied round the neck of a child suffering from whooping cough, was esteemed a sovereign remedy in Worcester, England, half a century ago.
Again, references will be found to the superstitious use of "ligatures" down to a comparatively recent period, and "I remember it was a custom in the north of England for boys that swam to wear an eel's skin about their naked leg to prevent the cramp."[715]