The belief still prevails in many rural districts that children dying unbaptized wander in woods and solitudes lamenting their hard fate. In Sweden parents will, therefore, carry a child miles away in the depth of winter to the minister to have it baptized before it is half-a-day old. There are, however, methods by which it is supposed even if baptism be deferred, that the devil's power over the child can be neutralized. One is to wrap it in red cloth and lay it in its cradle, with a psalm book and a pair of scissors placed crosswise upon its breast. "In presenting a child to the minister, its head must be on the right arm of the male parent." (West of Scotland). Brand quotes from a book on Scotland, published in 1793, the statement that the inhabitants of Kirkwall and S. Ola would consider it as an unhappy omen were they by any means disappointed in getting their children baptized on the very day which they had previously fixed in their minds for that purpose. The same compiler has this:--In the North, when the child was taken to church to be christened, a little boy was engaged to meet the infant on leaving the house, because it was deemed an unlucky omen to encounter a female first. It is supposed to be lucky for children to cry at baptisms, as if they are quiet and good then it shows they are too good to live. The idea arose from the custom of exorcism. When the devil was going out of a possessed person it cried and rent him sore; therefore the tears and struggles of the infant would be convincing proof that the evil one had departed. In Ireland, the nurses pinch the baby rather than let it be silent or cheerful. In Scotland (to quote Brand once more), on their return from church, they take the newly baptized child and vibrate it three or four times gently over a flame, saying thrice, "Let the flame consume thee now or never." This is possibly derived from a feast called Amphidromia, held at Athens, by private families on the fifth day after the birth of the child, when it was the custom of the gossips to run round the fire with the infant in their arms, and then, having delivered it to the nurse, they were entertained with feasting and dancing. Another Scotch fancy is that it is unlucky to tell the names of infants before baptism. In one of Dekker's plays (1630) occurs the following:--I am the most wretched fellow, sure some _left-handed priest christened me_, I am so unlucky.