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5. Phúlmati Rání weighs but one flower: compare Pánch Phúl Rání in Old Deccan Days, p. 133.

6. Indrásan (= Indra + �sana, Indra’s throne or home), says Dunkní, is the name of the underground fairy country. Its inhabitants, the fairies (parí) are called the Indrásan people; they delight in all lovely things; everything about them is beautiful; they play exquisitely on all kinds of musical instruments; they dance and sing a great deal; they have wings and can fly. They taught the little Monkey Prince (p. 42), and King Burtal’s eldest son was taken to them as a pupil by the fakír Goraknáth, p. 93. In Indrásan grows a tree of which no man can ever see the flowers or fruit, as the fairies gather them in the night and take them away. The Irish “good people” who live in clefts of rocks, caves, and mounds, and the Irish fairies who live in the beautiful land of youth under the sea, have many points in common with the Indian fairies. They, too, dance beautifully, are wonderful musicians, and have everything about them lovely and splendid. The “good people” also sometimes impart their knowledge to mortals. See pp. x, xii, and xviii of the Introduction to the Irische Elfenmaerchen translated into German by the brothers Grimm. Some of the Cornish fairies, the Small People, like the Indrásan people, live underground (Hunt’s Romances and Drolls of the West of England, pp. 116, 118, 125), aid those to whom they take a fancy and are very playful among themselves ( ib. p. 81); they have the most ravishing music ( ib. pp. 86, 98); their singing is clear and delicate as silver bells ( ib. p. 100); everything about them is joyous and beautiful ( ib. pp. 86, 99, 100); they are a tiny race ( ib. p. 81), but can at pleasure take the size of human beings ( ib. pp. 115, 122, 123); and their queen has hair “like gold threads” ( ib. p. 102). The fair-haired New Zealand fairies are, too, a kindly happy race. See Grey’s Polynesian Mythology, pp. 287 to 295. Nothing is said about their dancing, but they are described as “merry, cheerful, and always singing like a cricket” ( ib. p. 295), and from one of their fishing-nets left on the sea shore, when its fairy owners were surprised by the rising of the sun, the Maoris learnt the stitch for netting a net. Like the Indian fairies they appear to be as big as human beings.

7. Phúlmati Rání is drowned in a tank and becomes a flower; she is killed and brought to life several times: compare in this collection the story of the “Pomegranate Children” and note to that story. In one of Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales, “The Fiend,” p. 15, the heroine is killed through witchcraft: from her grave springs a flower which is herself transformed: she afterwards regains her human shape.

8. With Phúlmati’s last transformation compare the last that the Bél-Princess goes through (p. 148 of this collection), and that of a woman, who figures in a Dinájpur story published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary of April 5th, 1872, vol. I. p. 115. She, though living in the Rakshas country, is not a Rakshas, but does not appear to be an ordinary mortal, and when cut to bits by a certain magic knife becomes a tree. “Her feet became a silver stem, her two hands golden branches, her head ornaments were diamond leaves, all her bracelets and bangles were pearly fruits, and her head was a peacock dancing and playing in the branches.” As soon as the magic knife is thrown to the ground she regains her human form.