top of the fire,” and ties the rest of the thread with the single knot round the neck of the person or the tail of the cow, but always so that it may not be seen.(1123) A Scotch cure for a sprained leg or arm is to cast nine knots in a black thread and then tie the thread round the suffering limb, while you say: “_The Lord rade,_ _And the foal slade;_ _He lighted_ _And he righted,_ _Set joint to joint,_ _Bone to bone,_ _And sinew to sinew._ _Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name!_”(1124) In Gujarat, if a man takes seven cotton threads, goes to a place where an owl is hooting, strips naked, ties a knot at each hoot, and fastens the knotted thread round the right arm of a man sick of the fever, the malady will leave him.(1125) (M186) Again, knots may be used by an enchantress to win a lover and attach him firmly to herself. Thus the love-sick maid in Virgil seeks to draw Daphnis to her from the city by spells and by tying three knots on each of three strings of different colours.(1126) So an Arab maiden, who had lost her heart to a certain man, tried to gain his love and bind him to herself by tying knots in his whip; but her jealous rival undid the knots.(1127) On the same principle magic knots may be employed to stop a runaway. In Swazieland you may often see grass tied in knots at the side of the footpaths. Every one of these knots tells of a domestic tragedy. A wife has run away from her husband, and he and his friends have gone in pursuit, binding up the paths, as they call it, in this fashion to prevent the fugitive from doubling back over them.(1128) When a Swaheli wishes to capture a runaway slave he will sometimes take a string of coco-nut fibre to a wise man and get him to recite a passage of the Koran seven times over it, while at each reading the wizard ties a knot in the string. Then the slave-owner, armed with the knotted string, takes his stand in the door of the house and calls on his slave seven times by name, after which he hangs the string over the door.(1129)