Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/411

 Cairene Folklore. 391

Mustafa knew an old blind y"/^/ or schoolmaster at Hel- wan, named Shekh Khalifa, whose duty it was to call to prayers. One night an afrit came to him, and pretending to be a man, told him that he must go at once to the minaret. So he set off for the mosque, but when he took hold of the afrit's hand in order to be led there, he per- ceived what it was. He was not, however, afraid, and would not let it go, saying : " You must come to the canal (which then ran east of Old Helwan) and catch fish for me." Accordingly the afrit was dragged to the canal and there compelled to spend the night in catching fish and throwing them up on the bank, while the schoolmaster kept groping about until he had picked up as many as he could carry. After a time the afrit grew tired of his work and begged to be released, but this was not allowed until the whole of the bank was covered with the fish, and the afrit had been made to lead the/z^z back to his house. " For if one is afraid of an afrit the afrit has power over the man ; but if one is not afraid, the man has power over the afrit T Next morning the villagers stared with astonishment at the hundreds of fish which strewed the bank, and carried them off to their homes.

One of the villagers of Helwan was riding on his donkey back from Cairo, just before the Bairam feast, with some rice which he had bought. On the way he saw a fine sheep, apparently ownerless, and he thought its flesh would be good to mix with the rice. So he seized it and slung it over the donkey's back, holding it by the leg. When he approached the village the dogs began to bark, and he noticed to his horror that the sheep's leg began to grow longer and longer. Then he knew that it was an afrit which had assumed the form of a sheep, and in his fright he let go the leg, leaped off the donkey, and ran for his life. Luckily for him the dogs were barking close by, so the afrit could not catch him. But as he ran away it cried after him : " Tuzz, yabu-Faris, 'auz takul kharuf