thread to bind,

"As long as it's plant fibre, it can be any old embroidery floss," Teige said.

"Is there a magical reason it should be plant fibre?" Yoshi asked, unfolding a packet on the table to reveal a length of coiled floss.

"No, no. This is all very practical magic, you'll see."

and body to carry,

"Three hairs will do it," Teige instructed, as Yoshi obligingly plucked one from her head of long dark hair. "Like Grandma always said--" he put on a high affectation, twirling his own curly hair around one finger, "'If t'were good enough for Brian Boru, it's good enough for us!'"

Yoshi laughed. Teige came away with three hairs of his own, adding, "Anyway, the hair tunes the charm to you personally, so your clothes follow you from shape to shape."

now untwist and retwist,

the two to marry.

Teige showed Yoshi how to untwist the embroidery floss so that the fibres loosened and nearly came apart, and then how to twist it back together tightly, now with the hair woven into it. As they worked, he said, "Supposedly, the rhyme first said 'blood' instead of 'body.' But then at some point my family converted to Catholicism, and doing blood magic was suddenly 'evil' and 'the Devil's work.'" He rolled his eyes.

"Isn't blood a much stronger ingredient?" Yoshi asked.

"Surely. But it's practical, too, to use hair. It won't fade in the wash."

"That is practical."