male spirit that resided in dense forests and was so malignant that t

calamity to the hearer and his family, and the seeing of it death to t
described the call of a banshee as a long drawn-out scream, which w
and stormy nights. These banshee stories had a fearful fascination f
the jungles in which I loved to roam in search of birds and their eggs

I do not know what form the banshees took that Dansay heard in Ire
them took that he heard in the jungles at Kaladhungi. About one of t
the other is known to all the people who live along the foothills of th
parts of India, as a churail.The churail,themost feared of all evil spirits
Having cast her eyes on a human being this woman, whose feel are
mesmerizes her victims, as a snake does a bird, and walking backwa

their doom. When danger of seeing the woman threatens, the only d
shield the eyes with the hands, any piece of cloth that is handy, or,
head.

Whatever the human race may have been in the days of the cave m
essentially children of the daylight. In daylight we are in our elemen
can, if the necessity arises, summon the courage needed to face an
and make light of die things that a few hours previously made our sk
night engulfs us the sense of sight we depended on no longer sustai
our imagination. Imagination at the best of times can play strange t
added a firm belief in the supernatural it is not surprising that peopl
whose only means of transport is their own feet, and whose field of
illumination provided by a pine torch, or a hand lantern when paraffi
hours of darkness.

Living among the people and for months on end speaking only t h e
Dansay to have superimposed their superstitions on his own. Our hi
Dansay was as brave as man could be; but because of their belief in
that neither the hillmen nor Dansay ever dreamed of investigating w
the latter believed was a banshee.

During all the years I have lived in Kumaon, and the many hundreds

jungles, I have heard the churailonly three timesalways at nighta

It was the month of March. A bumper mustard crop had just been ha
midst of which our cottage is situated was alive with happy sounds.

children were calling to each other. The moon was a night or two fro
as good as in daylight. Maggie and I were on the point of calling for
p.m.when clear and piercing on the night air came the call of the c
the village was hushed. In the right-hand corner of the compound, a
cottage, stands an old haldutree. Generations of vultures, eagles, ha