Note 9 — The Queen of the Rock House1

This story contains references to several notions that are still preserved in the villages, such as the fulfilment of wishes, either silent or expressed aloud, when presenting offerings at the wihāras, the protection of human beings by the personal intervention of guardian deities, and the existence of internal apartments in certain rock masses. A high rounded hill of gneiss is pointed out at Nīrammulla, in the North-western Province,9 inside which King Vīra-Bāhu is stated to have constructed a palace; and many flat rocks which emit a hollow sound when trodden on are supposed to contain such an apartment or “house” as that mentioned in this tale. The belief that a human being may become a demon before death is, I think, not now held; but in the Jātaka story No. 321 (vol. iii, p. 48) a wicked boy became a prēta “while still alive.”