A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
Fuzzle Noor survives an attempt by her husband and his friend’s son to kill her by pushing her into a dry well. She lands on its resident demon, frightens him by falsely claiming to be the devil’s sister and persuades him that she has sought him out through love. He marries her on condition that she may beat his head daily with a slipper. Her supposed demonic kinship is a human bluff, not the narrator’s account of her ancestry.
Wounded and humiliated, the demon takes human form and hides among dervishes in a mosque. There he encounters her former husband, Mahomed Bux, without initially recognizing their connection. His immense appetite exposes his disguise. When the men discover their shared fear of Fuzzle Noor, the demon promises to secure a royal marriage for Mahomed Bux in exchange for secrecy, then enters the king’s daughter and makes her behave violently toward would-be healers.
Mahomed Bux obtains the king’s promise of her hand and approaches to expel the demon. The spirit initially enjoys its new quarters too much to leave, but flees when he whispers that Fuzzle Noor has arrived. After the marriage, it possesses the vizier’s daughter and threatens to kill its accomplice if he intervenes again. Pressed by the king, Mahomed Bux repeats the trick, claiming that Fuzzle Noor is outside and coming upstairs.
The frightened demon leaves the girl and escapes into the wilds, never heard from again. Neither a killing nor reconciliation with its wife is supplied. The story names the human characters but leaves the demon unnamed and provides no fixed monstrous anatomy. Its descriptions of possession, domestic violence and refuge in a mosque are source-specific narrative material; the narrator’s blanket statement about women’s access is not adopted as a general religious rule.
Origins & earliest records
Upper Indus Panjabi tales in Charles Swynnerton’s English collection
Records & interpretation
Complete tale read in retained primary OCR; critical printed passages checked against original scan images.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Indian Nights’ Entertainment; or, Folk-Tales from the Upper Indus
LXXIII, Fuzzle Noor and the Demon, pp.298–304
Family, evolution & connections
Fuzzle Noor, formerly Mahomed Bux’s wife
The narrator says the demon marries Fuzzle Noor. Her assertion that she is the devil’s sister is the bluff that deceives him, not established ancestry. His eventual flight supplies neither divorce nor her death.
Primary records and illustrations
Charles Swynnerton, Indian Nights’ Entertainment (1892)
1892 edition. LXXIII, Fuzzle Noor and the Demon, pp.298–304
Complete swynnerton1892-ch73.txt retained/read; title image leaf8 verified. Critical printed pages9,137–138,301,304 independently viewed in retained PNGs. Native-name equivalents and modern species not supplied.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical primary English translationCornell scan of Swynnerton (1892), LXXIII, Fuzzle Noor and the Demon, pp.298–304Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
