A middle-aged Brahman, one cold winter`s night, was crossing a wide plain on his way home. The wind blew shrill and chill, and the wayfarer, Sibu by name, trembled in every limb. Suddenly, on the left of his path, he saw a fire blazing cheerily, and round it a number of people enjoying its warmth. What a temptation to warm himself in good company before continuing his homeward journey! 

He came near, and feeling the genial influence of the flame from afar, incautiously shouted "Tapai, tapai," meaning "I am warmed, I am warmed." 

Alas, the creatures round the fire were maleficent ghosts, hideous, distorted, grinning, sworn enemies of mankind, shouting obscene words with the nasal utterance which marks their race. 

Moreover, one of them was named Tapai, and the ghostly assemblage were mightily vexed at a mortal`s familiar use of their comrade`s name. They threatened him with instant death. The Brahman, in terror, felt for his sacred thread, but it had slipped down. He strove to repeat the holy names of the gods, but his memory was paralyzed with fear. But finally the thread came into his hand, and taking heart, he boldly asserted that he knew Tapai quite well, seeing that Tapai and his ancestors for three generations had been the slaves of his family. 

"Well," cried Tapai, "if he can tell me the names of my ancestors, I will become his bond servant." 

To which the keen-witted priest replied, "How can I be expected to know the names of all the slaves of my ancestors? But I have them recorded in a ledger at home." On which he was allowed to depart on condition that he returned on the third day to answer to Tapai`s challenge. Otherwise not only he but his family would perish at the hands of the man-eating bhutas.

 
The Brahman went home, saved for the moment, indeed, but filled with despair for the future. For two miserable days the wretched priest could neither eat nor sleep, and his wife and daughter and infant son shared his anxiety. The third night, when his family slept, the miserable man went forth to hang himself in the jungle rather than face his ghostly foes. But on the very tree he chose for his suicide were two dark forms. He shuddered, he stood still, but he listened. 

It was Tapai and his wife, and the latter, with true feminine curiosity, was asking her husband the names of his forebears. Of course Tapai had to tell, as every husband does when his wife presses him. He recited the following verse: 

Haramu,
And his son Chharamu,
And his son Apai,
And his son Tapai.

Such was the verse which the Brahman committed to memory, and groping his way home through the dark forest, faced life with a new confidence. Next evening he went to the ghostly rendezvous, and the unlucky Tapai followed him home, his submissive slave. 

But there was one condition. Tapai would perform all tasks given to him from dawn till nightfall. But he must be kept occupied all the time. At first the condition seemed easy to fulfil. The bhuta was ordered to build a palace, raise a noble temple, dig a tank, procure a bridegroom for the Brahmans daughter, etc., etc. But there are limits to human desires and human inventiveness, and even the Brahman was, in spite of all the luxury with which he was now surrounded, a harassed and perplexed mortal. 

He was like to die of sheer worry and anxious thought, when his wife came to his rescue. She plucked a curly hair from her husband`s eyebrow. "Give that to the creature," she said, "and tell him to straighten it." 

The poor demon, for once, was at his wit`s end. He pulled the hair, and pressed it, and wetted it. But all in vain. The moment it was released, it curled up again. Finally, at nightfall, the good Brahman released Tapai, as Prospero released Ariel, and then he and his family lived happily afterwards!