There seems to be a special value in the sacred number "three," in the appeals through salt to the spiritual powers. In the Scottish Lowlands, "when a dead body has been washed and laid out, one of the oldest women present must light a candle, and wave it three times around the corpse. Then she must measure three handfuls of common salt into an earthenware plate, and lay it on the breast. Lastly she arranges three 'toom,' or empty dishes, on the hearth, as near as possible to the fire; and all the attendants going out of the room return into it backwards, repeat this 'rhyme of saining:' "'Thrice the torchie, thrice the saltie, Thrice the dishes toom for "loffie" (_i. e._, praise), These three times three ye must wave round The corpse, until it sleep sound. Sleep sound and wake nane, Till to heaven the soul's gane. If ye want that soul to dee Fetch the torch th' Elleree; Gin ye want that soul to live, Between the dishes place a sieve, An it sail have a fair, fair shrive.'"[183] [183] Henderson's _Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties_, p. 53. In connection with the putting of a plate of salt on the breast of a dead body, there were various usages. A plate of bread was sometimes set with the salt, and again a plate of earth was its accompaniment. And different reasons were assigned for the presence of the salt there. Napier says that many persons claimed for it a value in preventing the swelling of the body in process of decomposition, "but its original purpose was to act as a charm against the devil, to prevent him from disturbing the body."[184] [184] _Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland_, p. 60. "Pennant tells us that formerly, in Scotland, the corpse being stretched on a board and covered with a close linen wrapper, the friends laid on the breast of the deceased a wooden platter, containing a small quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed; the earth an emblem of the corruptible body, the salt as an emblem of the immortal spirit [the life]."[185] [185] Thistleton Dyer's _Domestic Folk-Lore_, p. 60.