It will be noticed that the last episode is almost identical with the ending of our story "The Devil and the Guachinango," while there is a considerable amount of divergence between the two elsewhere.
For versions collected before 1860 I am indebted to Benfey's treatment of this cycle. It is found in his "Pantschatantra," 1 : 519 ff. I take the liberty of summarizing it in this place, first, because it is the only exhaustive handling of the story I know of; and, second, because Benfey's brilliant work, while constantly referred to and quoted, has long been out of print, and has never been accessible in English.
The occasion for Benfey's dissertation on this particular tale is the relationship he sees between it and the large family of stories turning on the motive of a marvellous cure, a representative of which is "Pantschatantra," 5 : 12, "The Miraculous Cure of a Blind Man, a Humpback, and a Three-breasted Princess." [79] While the story we are discussing cannot be considered in any sense an offshoot of the Pantschatantra tale, it can scarcely be denied, says Benfey, that between the two there is a definite internal relationship, which is further manifested by the fact that in its later development the latter is actually joined to the former (p. 519).
The earliest form of our story is found in the "Cukasaptati," where it is told as the story for the 45th and 46th nights. 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.