KIM XIV -- chapter 8: Meantime a Place by the Fire

1. Churel: The overlapping of folkloric creatures / ghosts / monster / characters across cultures is fascinating.  The churel reminds me of La Llorona and the diviners from L'Inferno.  Of course, folklore derives itself from the human needs of its inventors and propagators, and no matter the culture, little differs among the peoples of world.  Right?  Anyway:  Inasmuch as the churel is a woman who died in childbirth, is there any symbolic connection that you can, well, divine, from/to the text?
2. Seeing the substantial role that Mahbub Ali yet plays, I haven't given up on the notion that perhaps he is the Red Bull after all, and that the Red Bull on the Green Field of Kimball's father's old regiment is ancillary, at least for Kim's coming-of-age.  Interesting, however, and especially from our current perspective from within the story where Kim is yet to commit to any one particular way of life, that not only is the beard dyed (within the context of the story) but also that (meta-story) the Red Bull regiment is an invention of Kipling's.  Thoughts?
3. "They were unfriends of mine."
4. "Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth with a dagger."  Akin to (off the top of my head, though a common enough theme) Ender's Game and its Buggers versus Humans: "If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you."   This, of course, is a perfectly apt theme (potentially, anyway -- though, of course, we'll see...) for Kim as there are so many cultures and the issue of communication between them is at point, else Kim would certainly not be Friend to all the World.
5. And so, building from the previous: "Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be damned. So says my Law—or I think it does. But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart."
6. Forgetting the final section, evaluate this chapter [1] as compared to those we've read so far and [2] as a story--a short story--unto itself, isolated from the rest of the book.