(M184) The maleficent power of knots may also be manifested in the infliction of sickness, disease, and all kinds of misfortune. Thus among the Hos of Togoland a sorcerer will sometimes curse his enemy and tie a knot in a stalk of grass, saying, “I have tied up So-and-So in this knot. May all evil light upon him! When he goes into the field, may a snake sting him! When he goes to the chase, may a ravening beast attack him! And when he steps into a river, may the water sweep him away! When it rains, may the lightning strike him! May evil nights be his!” It is believed that in the knot the sorcerer has bound up the life of his enemy.(1113) Babylonian witches and wizards of old used to strangle their victim, seal his mouth, wrack his limbs, and tear his entrails by merely tying knots in a cord, while at each knot they muttered a spell. But happily the evil could be undone by simply undoing the knots.(1114) We hear of a man in one of the Orkney Islands who was utterly ruined by nine knots cast on a blue thread; and it would seem that sick people in Scotland sometimes prayed to the devil to restore them to health by loosing the secret knot that was doing all the mischief.(1115) In the Koran there is an allusion to the mischief of “those who puff into the knots,” and an Arab commentator on the passage explains that the words refer to women who practise magic by tying knots in cords, and then blowing and spitting upon them. He goes on to relate how, once upon a time, a wicked Jew bewitched the prophet Mohammed himself by tying nine knots on a string, which he then hid in a well. So the prophet fell ill, and nobody knows what might have happened if the archangel Gabriel had not opportunely revealed to the holy man the place where the knotted cord was concealed. The trusty Ali soon fetched the baleful thing from the well; and the prophet recited over it certain charms, which were specially revealed to him for the purpose. At every verse of the charms a knot untied itself, and the prophet experienced a certain relief.(1116) It will hardly be disputed that by tying knots on the string the pestilent Hebrew contrived, if I may say so, to constrict or astringe or, in short, to tie up some vital organ or organs in the prophet’s stomach. At least we are informed that something of this sort is done by Australian blackfellows at the present day, and if so, why should it not have been done by Arabs in the time of Mohammed? The Australian mode of operation is as follows. When a blackfellow wishes to settle old scores with another blackfellow, he ties a rope of fibre or bark so tightly round the neck of his slumbering friend as partially to choke him. Having done this he takes out the man’s caul-fat from under his short rib, ties up his inside carefully with string, replaces the skin, and having effaced all external marks of the wound, makes off with the stolen fat. The victim on awakening feels no inconvenience, but sooner or later,