Case file · Folklore / legend
The churel in Crooke's 'Popular Religion and Folk-Lore'
William Crooke's 'Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India' (1896) recorded beliefs about the churel (chudail), the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth, whose feet point backwards.
1896 CE · 25.44, 81.85 · status: legend
The account
Crooke, a colonial administrator in the North-Western Provinces, described rites to keep such women from returning, such as nails and mustard seed at the grave.