Note 6 — VIII.—WITCHCRAFT AND DEMONOLOGY.

The other story is a translation from the Chinese,6 and runs as follows:—In Funghua district a literary man surnamed Woo had a slave girl of fifteen or sixteen who was black and ugly, but his wife was fair and beautiful. The slave always slept in the wife’s apartment, till suddenly one day she was missing and could not be found for two or three days. At last an old female servant on going to fetch firewood and opening the coal-hole heard an inexplicable chirping noise and turning aside some of the firewood found the girl standing like a stump in the middle of it. She was perfectly inane and on being pulled out, though she walked, would answer no questions. They gave her a dose of hot ginger and water, upon which she threw up a basin full of mud. Then she began to speak and said, “There was an old man like a genie in green clothes and square cap came and called me away, the other day, I know not where. When I wanted food he gave me cakes to eat. But now I am very hungry.” They gave her some rice and that night she slept in her mistress’s room. But everything in the room was being pulled about, so that the master and mistress got up to look. They called the girl, but she did not answer, and as the doors and everything were in their usual state they said nothing about it. Next day the girl was missing again, and searching for her in the old place they found her exactly as before. On giving her three slaps with the hand she came to herself, but while they were in the act of scolding her lo! there was what she called “an old man like a genie” up in the eaves of the house, holding a white fan and in appearance neither old nor young but middle-aged. They went up to the room above and tried to strike him, but they could not hit him nor make him move. In the midst of the hubbub he suddenly disappeared. But as suddenly it was reported that fire had broken out in the kitchen. This was extinguished, and then all was quiet. But afterwards every night either the slave or her mistress muttered or talked in the bedroom, or else there was heard the sound of people eating, or doing something out of the way. The master did not know what to do. One day he went and got some brave men to keep guard around the room with fire-arms, but then a fire broke out down stairs, and while all the people were putting it out the mistress and slave seemed perfectly unconscious that anything was going on. Next day, when the rice was cooked, on opening the pot they found that it was all mixed with dirt, and uneatable. There was no end to annoyances of this kind. At last they called in a Tauist priest to fast and say requiems. At the same time a “Fragrant Feast” of fine things was prepared as if for a great visitor. The master of the house put on his best clothes and also knelt down while he presented the wine and the viands: and the whole family small as well as great worshipped one whole day and night. But the trouble went on exactly as before. The genie himself would make his appearance at odd times; and in the dark there would be talking and conversation indistinctly heard, so that nothing could be definitely made out of them. One day the mistress took the slave girl, and fled with her to her (own) mother’s house; and then everything was out of joint there. There were sounds and movements, and dashing and breaking of things, and clothes burning. So they fled next to a small quiet Buddhist nunnery. But bad as things were before, here they were worse; and the master was at his wits’ end, all his means being exhausted to no purpose. After about half a year of this he took the girl and sold her to a villager in the neighbouring district of Tʻsze Kʻe, and his wife had peace at last. The villager however found the girl an intolerable nuisance, and when he wanted to sell her no one would buy her; so he drove her out into the street. But nobody would have anything to do with her there either, and she turned to begging. Then her master had peace and quietness.