The heifer receives a name.
“Quick, quick, quick!
Bring milk into the dugs.
The sap comes in the beeches,
The leaf comes on the oak.
“Quick, quick, quick!
Bring milk into the dugs.
In the name of the sainted Greta,
Gold-flower shall be thy name,”
and so on.[660] The intention of the ceremony appears to be to make sure that the heifer shall in due time yield a plentiful supply of milk; and this is perhaps supposed to be brought about by driving away the witches, who are particularly apt, as we have seen,[661] to rob the cows of their milk on the morning of May Day. Certainly in the north-east of Scotland pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine used to be placed over the doors of the byres on May Day to keep the witches from the cows; sometimes a single rod of rowan, covered with notches, was found to answer the purpose. An even more effectual guard against witchcraft was to tie a small cross of rowan-wood by a scarlet thread to each beast's tail; hence people said,