Page:Malay Sketches.pdf/216

 as you stand there in the brilliance of the moonlight, you will see that you have drawn your shadow into yourself, and your body will never again cast a shade. Go home and in the night, whether sleeping or waking, the form of a child will appear before you and put out its tongue; that seize and it will remain while the rest of the child disappears. In a little while the tongue will turn into something that breathes, a small animal, reptile or insect, and when you see the creature has life put it in a bottle and the pĕlsit is yours.”

It sounds easy enough, and one is not surprised to hear that everyone in Kĕdah, who is anybody, keeps a pĕlsit.

Langsûior, the female familiar, differs hardly at all from the bâjang except that she is a little more baneful, and, when under the control of a man, he sometimes becomes the victim of her attractions, and she will even bear him elfin children.

It is all very well for the Kĕdah ladies to sacrifice their shadows to obtain possession of a pĕlsit, leaders of society must be in the fashion at any cost; but there are plenty of people living in Perak who have seen more than one ancient Malay dame taken out into the river, and, despite her protestations, her tears and entreaties, have watched her, with hands