Note 22 — Chapter I

I do not propose to comment at any length upon the stories quoted in the present chapter. Some of them will be referred to farther on. Marusia’s demon lover will be recognized as akin to Arabian Ghouls, or the Rákshasas of Indian mythology. (See the story of Sidi Norman in the “Thousand and One Nights,” also Lane’s translation, vol. i., p. 32; and the story of Asokadatta and Vijayadatta in the fifth book of the “Kathásaritságara,” Brockhaus’s translation, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 142-159.) For transformations of a maiden into a flower or tree, see Grimm, No. 76, “Die Nelke,” and the notes to that story in vol. iii., p. 125—Hahn, No. 21, “Das Lorbeerkind,” etc. “The Water of Life,” will meet with due consideration in the fourth chapter. The Holy Water which destroys the Fiend is merely a Christian form of the “Water of Death,” viewed in its negative aspect.