A similar Russian tale is about a horse which has a golden mane and, when it is killed, a bull with golden hair arises from the blood spilt.
So numerous are the stories of this description, dealing with transformation, that it is practically impossible to divide them into their various types, although many attempts to classify them have been made by authoritative writers on folk-lore; nor is it possible to give them due occult significance. They are interesting chiefly on account of the details which may be gathered from them concerning methods and reasons of transformation.
The Indian Rakshasa (Bengalese Raqhosh) are beings of a malevolent nature which haunt cemeteries, harass the devout, animate dead bodies, and afflict mankind in various ways. They can assume any form they please, animal or other. Females appear as beautiful women for the purpose of luring men to their doom. When in their natural state they have upstanding hair, yellow as the flames which they vomit forth from mouths which are provided with huge tusks. They have large, black, hairy bodies. The Nagas, on the other hand, are semi-divine snake-beings with good impulses.
In "Bengali Household Tales," by William McCulloch,[93] a Raqhosh performs a transformation in the following manner: He removes a stone from an underground passage and descending brings forth a monkey. He then plucks a few leaves from a tree, draws water from a well close by, throws the leaves into it and pours it over the body of the monkey. The monkey is immediately transformed into a beautiful young woman with whom the Raqhosh descends by the underground passage. Towards dawn the two come up again. This time the Raqhosh plucks some leaves from another tree and throws them into some water from another well, and then pours it over the young woman. Instantaneously she is changed into a monkey again.
This is not the most usual way for such transformations and retransformations to occur in Indian folk-tales; sometimes they are achieved by magic rods. In Grimm's "Household Tale," "Donkey Cabbages," one kind of cabbage transforms a man into an ass and the other reverses the process.
Magicians, however, have other methods. Mercurius, the most skilful of sorcerers, was supposed to have discovered the secret of "fascinating" men's eyes in such a way as to make people invisible to their sight, or perhaps to give them the appearance of an animal. This may be compared to modern hypnotism and has an important bearing on the subject.