There he spent that night; and the next morning in the hall of audience he related at full length, in the presence of all, his night’s adventure by which he had won the sandal-wood tree. And when they heard it, his wives, and the ministers who had grown up with him from infancy, and those Vidyádharas who were devoted to him, namely, Váyupatha and the other chiefs with their forces, and the Gandharvas, headed by Chitrángada, were delighted at this sudden attainment of great success, and praised his heroism remarkable for its uninterrupted flow of courage, enterprise, and firmness. And after deliberating with them, the king, determined to overthrow the pride of Mandaradeva, set out in a heavenly chariot for the mountain of Govindakúṭa, in order to obtain the other jewels spoken of by the sandal-wood tree.
[1] Compare Webster’s play, The Duchess of Malfy, where the Duchess says
What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left
A dead man’s hand here?
[2] I read antargṛiham as one word.
[3] In the above wild story the hero has to endure the assaults of the witches on three successive nights. So in the story of the Headless Princess (Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, p. 271) the priest’s son has to read the psalter over the dead princess three nights running. He is hardest pressed on the last night; and on each occasion at day-break the “devilry vanished.” In the same way in The Soldier’s Midnight Watch (ib. p. 274) the soldier has three nights of increasing severity. So in Southey’s Old Woman of Berkeley, the assaults continue for three nights, and on the third are successful.
[4] Kuhn in his Westfälische Sagen, Vol. II, p. 29, gives a long list of herbs that protect men from witches. The earliest instance in literature is perhaps that Moly,
“That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave.”
See also Bartsch, Sagen aus Meklenburg, Vol. II, p. 37.