"Red thread is symbolical of lightning," and is consequently laid on churns in Ireland "to prevent the milk from being bewitched and yielding no butter." "In Aberdeenshire it is a common practice with the housewife to tie a piece of red worsted thread round the cows' tails before turning them out for the first time in the season to grass. It secured the cattle from the evil-eye, elf-shots, and other dangers."[708] "It [blue] is the sky color and the Druid's sacred colour."[709] "In 1635, a man in the Orkney Islands was, we are led to believe, utterly ruined by nine knots cast on a blue thread and given to his sister." "In a curious old book, 12mo., 1554, entitled A Short Description of Antichrist, is this passage: 'I note all their Popishe traditions of confirmacion of yonge children with oynting of oyle and creame, and with _a ragge knitte about the necke of the younge babe_.'"[710] A New England charm for an obstinate ague. "The patient in this case is to take a string made of woolen yarn, of three colors, and to go by himself to an apple-tree; there he is to tie his left hand loosely with the right to the tree by the tri-colored string, then to slip his hand out of the knot and run into the house without looking behind him."[711] The dust "in which a hawk has bathed itself, tied up in a linen cloth with a red string, and attached to the body,"[712] was one of the remedies for fevers. Another cure for fever: "Some inclose a caterpillar in a piece of linen, with a thread passed three times round it, and tie as many knots, repeating at each knot why it is that the patient performs that operation."[713] "To prevent nose-bleeding people are told to this day to wear a skein of scarlet silk thread round the neck, tied with nine knots down the front; if the patient is a man, the silk being put on and the knots tied by a woman; and if the patient is a woman, then these good services being rendered by a man."[714] A cord with nine knots in it, tied round the neck of a child suffering from whooping cough, was esteemed a sovereign remedy in Worcester, England, half a century ago. Again, references will be found to the superstitious use of "ligatures" down to a comparatively recent period, and "I remember it was a custom in the north of England for boys that swam to wear an eel's skin about their naked leg to prevent the cramp."[715] THE MEDICINE HAT.