How A Man Was Saved From The Devil

There was once a man at Kirtipur who discovered that his wife was going surreptitously to the foot of the hill where a big, old tree stood, around which the witches of the town gathered to pray to the Devil. At his wit's end, the man confided to a friend of his. The friend thought awhile and then enjoined upon him the need to pretend to know nothing of his wife's indiscretion and not to be unduly worried about it.

One night the wife prepared a and after throwing a few grains of rice over her husband, who pretended to be asleep, she made him powerless and tied a rope around his neck.

Dragging the poor husband like a goat, the wife and another woman arrived at the witches' tree down the hill. There, near the hour of midnight, the women began an elaborate but as they prepared to make the sacrifice, they suddenly heard a cock crow nearby, alarming them greatly and immediately putting an end to what they were doing. For, it was said that past the hour of midnight, with a new day beginning, the sacrifice was not to be made.

The two women left in a hurry, not even bothering to take with them the poor husband who lay helpless untill moments later, his friend came for him. Hours earlier, the friend had climbed the tree and in the nick of time, he had made the sound of a cock's crow. Thus, the man was saved from being sacrificed to the Devil.