文档介绍：Vikram and the Vampire
by Sir Richard R. Burton
Contents
Preface
Preface to the First (1870) Edition
Introduction
THE VAMPIRE'S FIRST STORY.
In which a Man deceives a Woman
THE VAMPIRE'S SECOND STORY.
Of the Relative Villany of Men and Woman
THE VAMPIRE'S THIRD STORY.
Of a High-minded Family
THE VAMPIRE'S FOURTH STORY.
Of a Woman who told the Truth
THE VAMPIRE'S FIFTH STORY.
Of the Thief who Laughed and Wept
THE VAMPIRE'S SIXTH STORY.
In which Three Men dispute about a Woman
THE VAMPIRE'S SEVENTH STORY.
Showng the exceeding Folly of many wise Fools
THE VAMPIRE'S EIGHTH STORY.
Of the Use and Misuse of Magic Pills
THE VAMPIRE'S NINTH STORY.
Showing that a Man's Wife belongs not to his body but to his
Head
THE VAMPIRE'S TENTH STORY.
Of the Marvellous Delicacy of Three Queens
THE VAMPIRE'S ELEVENTH STORY.
Which puzzles Raja Vikram
Conclusion
PREFACE
The Baital-Pachisi, or Twenty-five Tales of a Baital is the history of a huge Bat, Vampire, or Evil Spirit which inhabited and animated dead bodies. It is an old, and thoroughly Hindu, posed in Sanskrit, and is the germ which culminated in the Arabian Nights, and which inspired the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, acio's "Decamerone," the "Pentamerone," and all that class of facetious fictitious literature.
The story turns chiefly on a great king named Vikram, the King Arthur of the East, who in pursuance of his promise to a Jogi or Magician, brings to him the Baital (Vampire), who is hanging on a tree. The difficulties King Vikram and his son have in bringing the Vampire into the presence of the Jogi are truly laughable; and on this thread is strung a series of Hindu fairy stories, which contain much interesting information on Indian customs and manners. It also alludes to that state, which induces Hindu devotees to allow themselves to be buried alive, and to appear dead for weeks or months, and then to return to life again; a curious state of mesmeric catalepsy, into which they work themselves by c