The Vedarala then said, it is said, "If I am to believe that matter,
be pleased to creep inside this bottle," he said.
Well then, after Maraya crept into the bottle the Vedarala tightened
the lid (mudiya) of the bottle, and having beaten it down put it away.
From that day, when going to apply medical treatment on all days
having gone taking the bottle in which he put Maraya, he placed the
bottle at the head side of the sick person; and having applied medical
treatment cured the sick person. In this manner he got his livelihood.
Western Province.
In The Indian Antiquary, vol. i, p. 345, in a Bengal story by
Mr. G. H. Damant, a shepherd discriminates a demon from a man whose
form he has taken,--living with his wife during the man's absence,--by
boring through a reed, and saying that the true person must be the
one who could pass through it. As the demon was passing through it
he stopped both ends of the reed with mud, and killed him.
In the South Indian Tales of Mariyada Raman (P. Ramachandra Rao),
p. 43, a husband was returning home on an unlucky day (the ninth
of the lunar fortnight), with his wife, who had been visiting her
parents. When he left her on the path for a few moments, "Navami
Purusha," the deity who presided over the ninth day, made his
appearance in the form of the husband and went away with the wife. The
husband followed, and took the matter before Mariyada Raman. The judge
got a very narrow-necked jug prepared, and declared that he would give
her to the claimant who could enter and leave the jug without damaging
it or himself. When the deity did it the judge made obeisance to him,
and was informed that the man's form had been taken by him to punish
him for travelling on an unlucky day against the Purohita's advice.
In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 182, when a Brahmana returned home
after some years' absence he was turned away by a person of his own
appearance, and the King could not decide the matter. A boy elected
as King by others in their play offered to settle it, and producing a
narrow-mouthed phial stated that the one who entered it should have
judgment in his favour. When the ghost transformed himself into "a
small creature like an insect" and crept inside, the boy corked it
up and ordered the Brahmana to throw it into the sea and repossess
his home. The first part resembles a story in the Kathakoça (Tawney),
p. 41, the interloper being a deity in it.
In the well-known tale in the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton's ed.,
vol. i, p. 33), the receptacle in which the Jinni was imprisoned was
"a cucumber-shaped jar of yellow copper" or brass, closed by a leaden
cap stamped with the seal-ring of Solomon. In vol. iii, p. 54, and
vol. iv, p. 32, other Ifrits were enclosed in similar jars made of
brass, sealed with lead.