“We used always as children to get X’s scored with a pin on our new ‘village gaiters.’ We were told it was to make them safe and take the slipperiness off.”
Brookline, Mass.

“We used always as children to get X’s scored with a pin on our new ‘village gaiters.’ We were told it was to make them safe and take the slipperiness off.”
Source: Current Superstitions (1896), entry 98.
Fanny D. Bergen, editor.
Modern normalized navigation; the historical attribution above remains unchanged.