This method of restoring people, who die suddenly, to life by a good beating, is found in a Persian story, professing to be derived from a book “Post nubila Phœbus,” in which the physician bears the name of Kati, and asserts that he learnt the method from an old Arab. The story is found in Epistolæ Turcicæ et Narrationes Persicæ editæ et Latine conversæ a Joh. Ury. Oxonii, 1771, 4o, pp. 26 and 27. This collection, which contains not the least hint of its origin, is particularly interesting as it contains the VIIIth story of the Siddhikür; “The Painter and the Wood-carver.” [See Sagas from the Far East, p. 97.] The Episode of the stealing of the magic book is found, quite separated from the context, in many MS. versions of the Gesta Romanorum: see Appendix to Oesterley’s edition. (Oesterley’s Baitál Pachísí, pp. 183–185.)
[1] The Chakora is fabled to subsist upon moonbeams.
[2] See the numerous parallels in Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 232; and Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, p. 185, note, where he refers to the story of the Machandel boom (Kinder und Hausmärchen, No. 47), the myth of Zeus and Tantalus, and other stories. In the 47th tale of the Pentamerone of Basile, one of the five sons raises the princess to life and then demands her in marriage. In fact Basile’s tale seems to be compounded of this and the 5th of the Vetála’s stories. In Prym and Socin’s Syrische Märchen, No. XVIII, the bones of a man who had been killed ten years ago, are collected, and the water of life is poured over them with the same result as in our text. There is a “Pergamentblatt” with a life-restoring charm written on it, in Waldau’s Böhmische Märchen, p. 353.
[3] Nishkântam is perhaps a misprint for nishkrântam the reading of the Sanskrit College MS.
[4] Cp. Sagas from the Far East, p. 303.
Chapter LXXVII.
(Vetála 3.)
Then the heroic king Trivikramasena again went to the aśoka-tree, to fetch the Vetála. And he found him there in the corpse, and again took him up on his shoulder, and began to return with him in silence. And as he was going along, the Vetála, who was on his back, said to him, “It is wonderful, king, that you are not cowed with this going backwards and forwards at night. So I will tell you another story to solace you, listen.”