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"His characteristic seems to be an aversion for water. Anyone who
neglects his morning ablutions, for example, will succumb to some
temptation during the day. Similarly, when you go to bed without
washing your hands after the evening meal, the devil will lick them down
to the blood during the night. It is best not to sleep on your
stomach, for this is the posture which the devil prefers. Like the divs and djinns, he possesses the faculty of metamorphosis. Thus at
night it is dangerous to reply to the solicitations of beggars, for the
devil may have taken this shape to tempt man. He insinuates himself
everywhere. Thus after reading the Koran you should not leave the
book open, for the devil might profane it by reading it. You should
never aim a gun at anyone, even if it is empty, for the devil might load
it at that instant.
He particularly likes to introduce himself into the bodies of persons who
have been prematurely buried. Since graves are sometimes rather
shallow, it has happened that a person supposed to have been dead has come
out of the ground without too much difficulty and dragged himself all the
way home. In the region of Hamadan, this kind of ghost is called
hortlames ("dead man possessed by the devil"). "
"The devil had daughters, and these are Al (name of Turkish origin) and
Omm-os-Cibyan (name of Arab origin: "the mother with kids").
"We have already heard of the first and of her misdeeds (p. 18 ff.), and
have seen that she dreads water like her father.* To the preceding
information it should be added that she is vulnerable to pins, as are the
djinns (cf. p. 360**). Once a hunter was sitting on the edge of a river,
and saw an old woman dressed in red holding a liver. It was Al.
He hit her on the cheek and forced her to return the liver, which she had
taken from a woman in childbirth. Then he stuck a pin in her blouse
and thus kept Al in his service for seven years. During this period,
women gave birth to children without danger.
Her elder sister, Omm-os-Cibyan, gave birth to the male and female djinns,
who founded a race in their turn."
Taken directly from: "Persian Beliefs and Customs" by Henri Masse. HRAF
New Haven, ©1954. p.347-348
*I
do not currently possess this part of the text. The portion I have
was a excerpt used as part of a college course: Persian Mythology and
Folklore at Ohio State University. I am currently attempting to
track down the full English translation of this book but have been unable
to obtain it thus far.
**This page number comes directly from the text but is incorrect in the
translation. This reference is actually found on page 353.
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