called the Indrasan 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 fakir Goraknath, p. 93. In Indrasan 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 Indrasan 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. Phulmati Rani 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