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This section taken
directly from:
"Persian Beliefs and Customs" by Henri Masse. HRAF New Haven,
©1954. p.
346-347
Peris (fairies)
In contrast to the
divs, the peris are
beings of an ideal character, and seem to be much more benevolent.
Although they do not often frequent human habitations, they may occasionally
play the part of a succubus. They are numerous and obey a monarch.
Thus when you lose a small object (a key, etc.) you make a knot and say: "I
have barred the way to the daughter of the king of the Peris."
(In Gilan), "the white cock still figures in the village
poultry houses. The family respects and favors it, persuaded that its
cry brings good luck and that its presence keeps the peris and
divs which taunt the Gilan forests away from the house. It would
be ridiculous to cast any doubt on the existence of such fairies in the
land. They often appear to the inhabitants of Gilan, and protect or
persecute them. Hajji Djeafer-Khan, one of my friends, begged me with
tears in his eyes to give him some means of stopping the visits of a peri
who came and woke him up every night and beat his wife pitilessly. No
one in the town doubted the veracity of his assertions. Even the
mullahs (priests) admitted that they had exhausted their exorcisms, at which
the love-stricken peri only laughed. The women were afraid to
speak of any evil of the fairy, for fear of drawing down her wrath on
themselves." (Chodzko, Le Ghilan, p.49)
In Gobineau's time, belief in the fairies was prevalent
in the highest classes of society, and it was thus that one of Fath Ali
Shah's sons who dabbled in alchemy was duped by a dervish who promised him
an interview with one of them. Gradually, however, the importance of
divs and peris is retreating before that of the devil and
especially that of the djinns.
Another view
of Peris was presented in
"The Dictionary of Angels" by Gustav Davidson, © 1967, p. 222.
Davidson presents them as being fallen angels.
Click here
to read the passage.
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