While suspected persons, or persons of doubtful orthodoxy, were undergoing the "ordeal of boiling water" under ecclesiastical authority, in the Middle Ages and earlier, it is said that "by way of extra precaution, in some ritual it is ordered that holy water and blessed salt be mingled in all the food and drink of the patient--presumably to avert diabolical interference with the result."[179] [179] Martène, _De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibus_, Lib. III., c. vii., Ordo. 19; cited in Lea's _Superstition and Force_, p. 281. Among the folk-lore customs in modern Greece salt has prominence in various ways. Salt must be pounded on certain days and in a certain way, in order to guard against ill luck. Salt must never be carried out of the house after dark.[180] [180] Rodd's _Customs and Lore of Modern Greece_, p. 156. In Scotland and in England, as well as in the East, the use of burning salt in exorcism has continued in the more primitive regions down to the present century. James Napier tells, for example, of the treatment to which he was subjected as a child, when it was surmised that he had gotten "a blink of an ill e'e." He says: "A sixpence was borrowed from a neighbor, a good fire was kept burning in the grate, the door was kept locked, and I was placed upon a chair in front of the fire. The operator, an old woman, took a tablespoon and filled it with water. With the sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it could carry, and both were put into the water in the spoon. The water was then stirred with the forefinger till the salt was dissolved. Then the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands were bathed with this solution thrice, and after these bathings I was made to taste the solution three times. The operator then drew her wet forefinger across my brow,--called 'scoring aboon the breath.' The remaining contents of the spoon she then cast over the fire, into the hinder part of the fire, saying as she did so, 'Guid preserve frae a' skith.' These were the first words permitted to be spoken during the operation."[181] Mr. Napier adds that while in his case the "scoring aboon the breath" was accomplished by scoring with a finger wet with salt water, the suspected possessor of an evil eye was scored with the finger-nails, or some sharp instrument, so as to draw blood. The blood and the salt seemed to have correspondent values. [181] _Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland_, p. 36 f. In the southern counties of England, salt is thrown into the fire by way of invoking spiritual aid in behalf of a lass who would win back a recreant lover. "A pinch of salt must be thrown into the fire on three successive Friday nights, while these lines are repeated: "'It is not this salt I wish to burn, It is my lover's heart to turn; That he may neither rest, nor happy be, Until he comes and speaks to me.'"[182] [182] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 176.