Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/374

358 small loops. The other loop end pulls the string into a common fastening or double half-hitch. So far, I have nothing to confirm my suspicion that this trick is found in Europe.

Hold the string with thumbs and indices, the hands a few inches apart. Make a smaller loop by bringing the parts held by the fingers together, the right piece between the body and the left piece. The small loop's right string will thus cross in front of the left string, and become the large loop's left string. Hold the cross strings in the mouth. With the right hand in front of the loops, put the index into the small loop (Fig. 8);

take it up and carry it round, first in front then behind, the right string of the large loop. Push the index with the small loop still on it up forward through the large loop, and lay the tip of the finger on the nose (Fig. 9).

With the left hand pull the left string, letting go with the mouth. The string comes away in the left hand, the index