A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
In Kúnos and Bain’s “The Wind-Demon,” a king keeps his youngest daughter in a steel-lined room against a supernatural abductor. Prince Mehmed marries her but goes hunting despite the warning that she remains endangered. The Wind-Demon, who has feared the prince’s presence, seizes this opportunity to carry her off. He travels like a whirlwind and is described as invisible and impervious to fire. These statements do not supply a fixed monstrous body: later the captive permits him to show himself to her occasionally, while ordinarily keeping him outside her chamber.
Mehmed finds her while the demon sleeps and they escape on horseback. The demon wakes on the fourth day, leisurely drinks coffee and smokes before overtaking them, then tears the prince apart. The woman obtains permission to gather his remains and sends them away on his horse. Her captor takes her back; elsewhere, the emerald Anka reconstructs and revives the prince. A later sleep lasts forty days, rather than establishing the earlier four-day interval as an invariable cycle. On his second visit Mehmed asks his wife to discover the demon’s talisman instead of merely attempting another flight.
She learns that a white dove in a golden cage inside an ox on a remote island is his talisman. A speaking sea-horse enables Mehmed to reach the island, cut open the ox and remove the cage. During the couple’s next escape the horse orders them to twist the dove’s neck as their pursuer draws near. The wind dies away and the demon is destroyed. The tale then returns the couple through the animal relatives’ households and eventually restores Mehmed’s right to rule. The external-life arrangement belongs to this particular tale; no additional invulnerability rules or independent biography for the dove are supplied.
Origins & earliest records
Turkish storytelling collected in Anatolia, through Hungarian and English publication
Records & interpretation
Complete English tale through the final restoration of the prince’s inheritance read; no attached footnote.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales
“The Wind-Demon,” pp. 112–133. London: A. H. Bullen. Complete English tale; preface dates July 1896 and identifies the Hungarian 1889 collection. No attached footnote.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
Turkish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales
Ignácz Kúnos / R. Nisbet Bain; London: A. H. Bullen, 1901. The Wind-Demon, pp. 112–133
Full cache kunos-bain-10.txt, 28289 characters. Tomb vigil, night keeper, three animal marriages, abduction, failed escape and dismemberment, Anka resurrection, talisman disclosure, sea-horse retrieval, dove death and final kingship all read. No footnotes attached. Wind-Demon’s invisibility coexists with permission to show himself to the woman; no invented permanent visible anatomy.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical English folktale translation through HungarianKúnos/Bain 1901, The Wind-DemonResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.