NOTES AND QUERIES. 379
newly risen from childbed enters without being invited to eat and drink. A thread having nine knots upon it, is, when fastened round the joint, an effectual cure for a sprain. Some are of opinion that three threads of different colours will answer better. Three and three times three have been magic numbers from very ancient times. A drink of water in which a stone found in the stomach of a cod has been boiled is a preventive of sea-sickness. A generation or two ago a stitch in the side was cured by placing mould, taken from a grave and heated in a kettle, upon the place affected. It was essential that the earth should be taken from and returned to the grave after sunset, and thereby hangs a tale. On one occasion a man named Lawrence Robertson, who was celebrated for his skill in applying this remedy, forgot to return the ghastly poultice to the grave in due time, and a knock was heard at his door at midnight, when he exclaimed, " Oh ! dat's Geordie Henry's ghost come for the moul' dat was ta'en fnie his grave." The scum that rises from slugs kept in a bottle is a cure for rickets. When a he-cat is killed, misfortunes of all kinds may be anticipated — cattle, sheep, and poultry will die. When the milk of a cow has been bewitched, and all the profit or virtue taken out of it by some evil-disposed person acquainted with the black art, "water should be taken from the suspected person's well, and some of it be given to the cow, and the rest be poured into a pail of her milk. If no one in particular be suspected, water from other wells must be tried until the well of the delinquent be detected, and the milk restored to a healthy state. About two years ago an Established Church minister in Tiree refused to baptise the children of a crofter (John MacKinnon by name) because the latter persisted in believing and declaring that a woman had taken the profit out of his cow's milk. Three children were left without names in consequence of their father's obstinacy. Some women in St. Kilda are in the habit of putting a small flower into the pail when they go to the glen to milk their cows and ewes, to keep the milk from being bewitched by an " evil eye." Jn Foula, when spotted lambs begin to be common it is a sign that the flock will decrease. It is wrong to mention a cat to a man who is baiting his lines; and if any malicious person cries to a fisherman bound for the haaf, " There's a cat in your bnddio," no fish will be
