2. Legends of transformed maidens being delivered from the power of
enchantment and married by heroes and knights are common enough, but
we less frequently meet with stories presenting a reversed plot. I
have met with one, however, nearly identical with that given in the
text, attached to a ruined castle of Wâlsch-Tirol.
3. The Buddhist idea of the soul is very difficult to define. In other
legends given later in the present volume (e. g. the episode of the
burying of Vikramâditja's body and the action of the fourth youth in
"Who invented Women?") we find it, just as in the present one, spoken
of as a quite superfluous and fantastic adjunct without which a man
was to all intents and purposes the same as when he had it. Spence
Hardy affirms as the result of conversations with Buddhists during
half a life passed among them in Ceylon, as well as from the study
of their writings, that "according to Buddhism there is no soul."