Hemestertius supposes the Gordian Knot to have been nothing but a variety of the himantiliginos.

The game consists in winding a thong in such an intricate manner, that when a peg is inserted in the right ring, it is caught, and the game is won; if the mark is missed, the thong unwinds without entangling the peg.
The Irish keen [_caoine_] may still be heard in Algeria and Upper Egypt, even as Herodotus heard it chanted by Lybian women.

This wailing for the deceased is a most ancient custom; and if antiquity imparts dignity, it can hardly be termed barbarous.

The Romans employed keeners at their funerals, an idea which they probably borrowed from the Etruscans,[151] with many others incomparably more valuable, but carefully self-appropriated.

Our _wakes_ also may have had an identity of origin with the funeral feasts of the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans, whose customs were all probably derived from a common source.
The fasting of the creditor on the debtor is still practised in India, and will be noticed in connexion with the Brehon Laws.