Vigne, an
Englishman who visited Kashmir around 1835 described some mythical figures in his book- 'Travels in Kashmir, Ladak, Iskardo, the Countries Adjoining the
Mountain-Course of the Indus, and the Himalaya,'. i'm just mentioning the ones I haven't covered.
The Jins
"The Gins
(geni) are the most universally feared, and Samud Shah [ a local noble and
Vigne's guide and host on many occasions] assured me that there were many
places where a man could not venture after nightfall, for fear of them. There
is an old musjid standing alone on a desolate spot, between Shupeyon and Safur
Nagur, near, I think, the village of Arihel, where the gins, as he affirmed,
were as thick as sheep in a fold. He once, when travelling, repaired thither
for the purpose of saying his prayers ; he heard his own name pronounced, and a
gin suddenly appeared in the shape of a jackal, and nearly knocked him down by
running against him. He was terribly frightened, and having made his escape,
narrated his tale to the first peasant he met, who expressed his astonishment
at his having ventured into a place which every one knew to be so
dangerous."
The Deyu
The Peri
"The Peri is
a being beautiful enough to compensate for all these horrors. Their bodies are
made up of the four elements; but fire is the predominant ingredient without
consuming the rest. But their amours with a mortal are followed by death from
fire.
The attachment of the females is as fatal as that of the
other sex ; but they are said to play all kinds of pranks. Their ladies, like
Titania, will occasionally become fond of "a lovely boy stolen from an
Indian king." And the young Kashmirian girls modestly accuse the fairies
of both sexes of stealing the surma (antimony) from their eyelids whilst they
sleep; the one from love, and the other from jealousy of their beauty. The old
building of Kutlina, on the green slope that overhangs the city lake, is
considered as one of their principal quarters, and is also on that account
denominated the Peri Mahal, or the palace of the fairies."
"The Mushran appears in
the shape of a dirty-looking and very old man, who seizes a person with a
parental hug, and produces thenceforth a wasting and dangerous decline."
