Certain people were supposed to possess a certain spell that if they would milked your cow on the 1st of May they would take all your milk for the year. To outwit those people it was thought that if a red string was tied to the cows tail before May morning came their spell would not work Whilst churning was on no one was allowed to bring fire outside the door. Any one who went into a house which was not his own while churning was going on he wasMatt Smyth