ights. In this version,--

A Brahman, driven away from home by the malice of his wife,
is befriended by a demon who had formerly lived in the Brahman's
house, but who had also fled in fear from her shrewish tongue. The
demon enters the body of a princess; and the Brahman, appearing as
a conjurer, forces him to leave, in accordance with their pact, and
wins half a kingdom and the hand of the princess. The demon now goes
to another city where he possesses the queen, an aunt of the Brahman's
new father-in-law. The Brahman, whose reputation as an enchanter has
become great, is summoned to cure this queen. When he arrives, the
demon threatens and insults him, refusing to leave the queen because
they are now quits. The Brahman, however, whispers in the woman's
ear, "My wife is coming here close on my heels, I have come only to
warn you;" whereupon the demon, terror-stricken, at once leaves the
queen. The Brahman is highly honored.

Benfey conjectures that this story must have passed over into the
Persian redaction of the "Cukasaptati" (i.e., the "Tuti-nameh"),
but what changes it underwent in the transmission cannot yet be
determined. The earliest European form of the tale is that found in
the Turkish "Forty Vezirs" (trans. by Behrnauer, p. 277).

Here a young wood-cutter saves money to buy a rope; but his shrewish
wife, thinking that he is going to spend it on a sweetheart, insists
on accompanying him to his work in the mountains, so that she can
keep him under her eye. In the mountains the husband decides to
abandon his wife in a well. He tells her to hold a rope while he
descends to fetch a treasure which he pretends is concealed at the
bottom; but she is so avaricious, that she insists on being let down
first. Then he drops the rope, and returns home free. A few days
later, conscience-smitten, he goes back to rescue his wife, and,
lowering another rope, he calls to her that he will draw her up;
but he hauls a demon to the surface instead. The demon thanks the
wood-cutter for rescuing him from a malicious woman "who some days
ago descended, and has made my life unbearable ever since." As in the
Cukasaptati story, the demon enters a princess and makes her insane,
and the wood-cutter cures her and marries her. Then the demon enters
another princess. The wood-cutter is summoned; he has to resort to
the well-known trick to force the imp to leave this second maiden.

In the Persian form of this story, in the "1001 Days" (Pr