Myths of Babylonia and Assyria Part 13

As the origin of evil Tiamat personified the deep and tempests. In this character she was the enemy of order and good, and strove to destroy the world.

I have seen The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam To be exalted with the threatening clouds.[167]

Tiamat was the dragon of the sea, and therefore the serpent or leviathan. The word "dragon" is derived from the Greek "drakon", the serpent known as "the seeing one" or "looking one", whose glance was the lightning. The Anglo-Saxon "fire drake" ("draca", Latin "draco") is identical with the "flying dragon".

In various countries the serpent or worm is a destroyer which swallows the dead. "The worm shall eat them like wool", exclaimed Isaiah in symbolic language.[168] It lies in the ocean which surrounds the world in Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Teutonic, Indian, and other mythologies. The Irish call it "moruach", and give it a mermaid form like the Babylonian Nintu. In a Scottish Gaelic poem Tiamat figures as "The Yellow Muilearteach", who is slain by Finn-mac-Coul, a.s.sisted by his warrior band.

There was seen coming on the top of the waves The crooked, clamouring, s.h.i.+vering brave ...

Her face was blue black of the l.u.s.tre of coal, And her bone-tufted tooth was like rusted bone.[169]

The serpent figures in folk tales. When Alexander the Great, according to Ethiopic legend, was lowered in a gla.s.s cage to the depths of the ocean, he saw a great monster going past, and sat for two days "watching for its tail and hinder parts to appear".[170] An Argylls.h.i.+re Highlander had a similar experience. He went to fish one morning on a rock. "He was not long there when he saw the head of an eel pa.s.s. He continued fis.h.i.+ng for an hour and the eel was still pa.s.sing. He went home, worked in the field all day, and having returned to the same rock in the evening, the eel was still pa.s.sing, and about dusk he saw her tail disappearing."[171] Tiamat's sea-brood is referred to in the Anglo-Saxon epic _Beowulf_ as "nickers". The hero "slew by night sea monsters on the waves" (line 422).

The well dragon--the French "draco"--also recalls the Babylonian water monsters. There was a "dragon well" near Jerusalem.[172] From China to Ireland rivers are dragons, or G.o.ddesses who flee from the well dragons. The demon of the Rhone is called the "drac". Floods are also referred to as dragons, and the Hydra, or water serpent, slain by Hercules, belongs to this category. Water was the source of evil as well as good. To the Sumerians, the ocean especially was the abode of monsters. They looked upon it as did Shakespeare's Ferdinand, when, leaping into the sea, he cried: "h.e.l.l is empty and all the devils are here".[173]

There can be little doubt but that in this Babylonian story of Creation we have a glorified variation of the widespread Dragon myth.

Unfortunately, however, no trace can be obtained of the pre-existing Sumerian oral version which the theorizing priests infused with such sublime symbolism. No doubt it enjoyed as great popularity as the immemorial legend of Perseus and Andromeda, which the sages of Greece attempted to rationalize, and parts of which the poets made use of and developed as these appealed to their imaginations.

The lost Sumerian story may be summarized as follows: There existed in the savage wilds, or the ocean, a family of monsters antagonistic to a group of warriors represented in the Creation legend by the G.o.ds. Ea, the heroic king, sets forth to combat with the enemies of man, and slays the monster father, Apsu, and his son, Mummu. But the most powerful demon remains to be dealt with. This is the mother Tiamat, who burns to avenge the deaths of her kindred. To wage war against her the hero makes elaborate preparations, and equips himself with special weapons. The queen of monsters cannot be overcome by ordinary means, for she has great cunning, and is less vulnerable than were her husband and son. Although Ea may work spells against her, she is able to thwart him by working counter spells. Only a hand-to-hand combat can decide the fray. Being strongly protected by her scaly hide, she must be wounded either on the under part of her body or through her mouth by a weapon which will pierce her liver, the seat of life. It will be noted in this connection that Merodach achieved success by causing the winds which followed him to distend the monster's jaws, so that he might be able to inflict the fatal blow and prevent her at the same time from uttering spells to weaken him.

This type of story, in which the mother monster is greater and more powerful than her husband or son, is exceedingly common in Scottish folklore. In the legend which relates the adventures of "Finn in the Kingdom of Big Men", the hero goes forth at night to protect his allies against the attacks of devastating sea monsters. Standing on the beach, "he saw the sea advancing in fiery kilns and as a darting serpent.... A huge monster came up, and looking down below where he (Finn) was, exclaimed, 'What little speck do I see here?'" Finn, aided by his fairy dog, slew the water monster. On Finn, aided by his fairy dog, slew the water monster. On the following night a bigger monster, "the father", came ash.o.r.e, and he also was slain. But the most powerful enemy had yet to be dealt with. "The next night a Big Hag came ash.o.r.e, and the tooth in the front of her mouth would make a distaff. 'You killed my husband and son,' she said." Finn acknowledged that he did, and they began to fight. After a prolonged struggle, in which Finn was almost overcome, the Hag fell and her head was cut off.[174]

The story of "Finlay the Changeling" has similar features. The hero slew first a giant and then the giant's father. Thereafter the Hag came against him and exclaimed, "Although with cunning and deceitfulness you killed my husband last night and my son on the night before last, I shall certainly kill you to-night." A fierce wrestling match ensued on the bare rock. The Hag was ultimately thrown down. She then offered various treasures to ransom her life, including "a gold sword in my cave", regarding which she says, "never was it drawn to man or to beast whom it did not overcome".[175] In other Scottish stories of like character the hero climbs a tree, and says something to induce the hag to open her mouth, so that he may plunge his weapon down her throat.

The Grendel story in _Beowulf_,[176] the Anglo-Saxon epic, is of like character. A male water monster preys nightly upon the warriors who sleep in the great hall of King Hrothgar. Beowulf comes over the sea, as did Finn to the "Kingdom of Big Men", to sky Grendel. He wrestles with this man-eater and mortally wounds him. Great rejoicings ensue, but they have to be brought to an abrupt conclusion, because the mother of Grendel has meanwhile resolved "to go a sorry journey and avenge the death of her son".

The narrative sets forth that she enters the Hall in the darkness of night. "Quickly she grasped one of the n.o.bles tight, and then she went towards the fen", towards her submarine cave. Beowulf follows in due course, and, fully armoured, dives through the waters and ultimately enters the monster's lair. In the combat the "water wife" proves to be a more terrible opponent than was her son. Indeed, Beowulf was unable to slay her until he possessed himself of a gigantic sword, "adorned with treasure", which was hanging in the cave. With this magic weapon he slays the mother monster, whose poisonous blood afterwards melts the "damasked blade". Like Finn, he subsequently returns with the head of one of the monsters.

An interesting point about this story is that it does not appear in any form in the North German cycle of Romance. Indeed, the poet who included in his epic the fiery dragon story, which links the hero Beowulf with Sigurd and Siegfried, appears to be doubtful about the mother monster's greatness, as if dealing with unfamiliar material, for he says: "The terror (caused by Grendel's mother) was less by just so much as woman's strength, woman's war terror, is (measured) by fighting men".[177] Yet, in the narrative which follows the Amazon is proved to be the stronger monster of the two. Traces of the mother monster survive in English folklore, especially in the traditions about the mythical "Long Meg of Westminster", referred to by Ben Jonson in his masque of the "Fortunate Isles":

Westminster Meg, With her long leg, As long as a crane; And feet like a plane, With a pair of heels As broad as two wheels.

Meg has various graves. One is supposed to be marked by a huge stone in the south side of the cloisters of Westminster Abbey; it probably marks the trench in which some plague victims--regarded, perhaps, as victims of Meg--were interred. Meg was also reputed to have been petrified, like certain Greek and Irish giants and giantesses. At Little Salkeld, near Penrith, a stone circle is referred to as "Long Meg and her Daughters". Like "Long Tom", the famous giant, "Mons Meg"

gave her name to big guns in early times, all hags and giants having been famous in floating folk tales as throwers of granite boulders, b.a.l.l.s of hard clay, quoits, and other gigantic missiles.

The stories about Grendel's mother and Long Meg are similar to those still repeated in the Scottish Highlands. These contrast sharply with characteristic Germanic legends, in which the giant is greater than the giantess, and the dragon is a male, like Fafner, who is slain by Sigurd, and Regin whom Siegfried overcomes. It is probable, therefore, that the British stories of female monsters who were more powerful than their husbands and sons, are of Neolithic and Iberian origin--immemorial relics of the intellectual life of the western branch of the Mediterranean race.

In Egypt the dragon survives in the highly developed mythology of the sun cult of Heliopolis, and, as sun wors.h.i.+p is believed to have been imported, and the sun deity is a male, it is not surprising to find that the night demon, Apep, was a personification of Set. This G.o.d, who is identical with Sutekh, a Syrian and Asia Minor deity, was apparently wors.h.i.+pped by a tribe which was overcome in the course of early tribal struggles in pre-dynastic times. Being an old and discredited G.o.d, he became by a familiar process the demon of the conquerors. In the eighteenth dynasty, however, his ancient glory was revived, for the Sutekh of Rameses II figures as the "dragon slayer".[178] It is in accordance with Mediterranean modes of thought, however, to find that in Egypt there is a great celestial battle heroine. This is the G.o.ddess Hathor-Sekhet, the "Eye of Ra".[179]

Similarly in India, the post-Vedic G.o.ddess Kali is a destroyer, while as Durga she is a guardian of heroes.[180] Kali, Durga, and Hathor-Sekhet link with the cla.s.sical G.o.ddesses of war, and also with the Babylonian Ishtar, who, as has been shown, retained the outstanding characteristics of Tiamat, the fierce old "Great Mother"

of primitive Sumerian folk religion.

It is possible that in the Babylonian dragon myth the original hero was Ea. As much may be inferred from the symbolic references in the Bible to Jah's victory over the monster of the deep: "Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon?"[181] "Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters; thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness";[182] "He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud (Rahab). By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens: his hand hath formed (or pierced) the crooked serpent";[183] "Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain: thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm";[184] "In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing (or stiff) serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea".[185]

In the Babylonian Creation legend Ea is supplanted as dragon slayer by his son Merodach. Similarly Ninip took the place of his father, Enlil, as the champion of the G.o.ds. "In other words," writes Dr. Langdon, "later theology evolved the notion of the son of the earth G.o.d, who acquires the attributes of the father, and becomes the G.o.d of war. It is he who stood forth against the rebellious monsters of darkness, who would wrest the dominion of the world from the G.o.ds who held their conclave on the mountain. The G.o.ds offer him the Tablets of Fate; the right to utter decrees is given unto him." This development is "of extreme importance for studying the growth of the idea of father and son, as creative and active principles of the world".[186] In Indian mythology Indra similarly takes the place of his bolt-throwing father Dyaus, the sky G.o.d, who so closely resembles Zeus. Andrew Lang has shown that this myth is of widespread character.[187] Were the Babylonian theorists guided by the folk-lore clue?

Now Merodach, as the son of Ea whom he consulted and received spells from, was a brother of "Tammuz of the Abyss". It seems that in the great G.o.d of Babylon we should recognize one of the many forms of the primeval corn spirit and patriarch--the shepherd youth who was beloved by Ishtar. As the deity of the spring sun, Tammuz slew the winter demons of rain and tempest, so that he was an appropriate spouse for the G.o.ddess of harvest and war. Merodach may have been a development of Tammuz in his character as a demon slayer. When he was raised to the position of Bel, "the Lord" by the Babylonian conquerors, Merodach supplanted the older Bel--Enlil of Nippur. Now Enlil, who had absorbed all the attributes of rival deities, and become a world G.o.d, was the

Lord of the harvest lands ... lord of the grain fields,

being "lord of the anunnaki", or "earth spirits". As agriculturists in early times went to war so as to secure prisoners who could be sacrificed to feed the corn spirit, Enlil was a G.o.d of war and was adored as such:

The haughty, the hostile land thou dost humiliate ...

With thee who ventureth to make war?

He was also "the bull of goring horns ... Enlil the bull", the G.o.d of fertility as well as of battle.[188]

Asari, one of Merodach's names, links him with Osiris, the Egyptian Tammuz, who was supplanted by his son Horus. As the dragon slayer, he recalls, among others, Perseus, the Grecian hero, of whom it was prophesied that he would slay his grandfather. Perseus, like Tammuz and Osiris, was enclosed in a chest which was cast into the sea, to be rescued, however, by a fisherman on the island of Seriphos. This hero afterwards slew Medusa, one of the three terrible sisters, the Gorgons--a demon group which links with Tiamat. In time, Perseus returned home, and while an athletic contest was in progress, he killed his grandfather with a quoit. There is no evidence, however, to show that the displacement of Enlil by Merodach had any legendary sanction of like character. The G.o.d of Babylon absorbed all other deities, apparently for political purposes, and in accordance with the tendency of the thought of the times, when raised to supreme rank in the national pantheon; and he was depicted fighting the winged dragon, flapping his own storm wings, and carrying the thunder weapon a.s.sociated with Ramman.

Merodach's spouse Zer-panitu? was significantly called "the lady of the Abyss", a t.i.tle which connects her with Damkina, the mother, and Belit-sheri, the sister of Tammuz. Damkina was also a sky G.o.ddess like Ishtar.

Zer-panitu? was no pale reflection of her Celestial husband, but a G.o.ddess of sharply defined character with independent powers.

Apparently she was identical with Aruru, creatrix of the seed of mankind, who was a.s.sociated with Merodach when the first man and the first woman were brought into being. Originally she was one of the mothers in the primitive spirit group, and so identical with Ishtar and the other prominent G.o.ddesses.

As all G.o.ddesses became forms of Ishtar, so did all G.o.ds become forms of Merodach. Sin was "Merodach as illuminator of night", Nergal was "Merodach of war", Addu (Ramman) was "Merodach of rain", and so on. A colophon which contains a text in which these identifications are detailed, appears to be "a copy", says Professor Pinches, "of an old inscription", which, he thinks, "may go back as far as 2000 B.C. This is the period at which the name _Yau?-ilu_, 'Jah is G.o.d', is found, together with references to _ilu_ as the name for the one great G.o.d, and is also, roughly, the date of Abraham, who, it may be noted, was a Babylonian of Ur of the Chaldees."[189]

In one of the hymns Merodach is addressed as follows:--

Who shall escape from before thy power?

Thy will is an eternal mystery!

Thou makest it plain in heaven And in the earth, Command the sea And the sea obeyeth thee.

Command the tempest And the tempest becometh a calm.

Command the winding course Of the Euphrates, And the will of Merodach Shall arrest the floods.

Lord, thou art holy!

Who is like unto thee?

Merodach thou art honoured Among the G.o.ds that bear a name.

The monotheistic tendency, which was a marked feature of Merodach wors.h.i.+p, had previously become p.r.o.nounced in the wors.h.i.+p of Bel Enlil of Nippur. Although it did not affect the religion of the ma.s.ses, it serves to show that among the ancient scholars and thinkers of Babylonia religious thought had, at an early period, risen far above the crude polytheism of those who bargained with their deities and propitiated them with offerings and extravagant flattery, or exercised over them a magical influence by the performance of seasonal ceremonies, like the backsliders in Jerusalem, censured so severely by Jeremiah, who baked cakes to reward the Queen of Heaven for an abundant harvest, and wept with her for the slain Tammuz when he departed to Hades.

Perhaps it was due to the monotheistic tendency, if not to the fusion of father-wors.h.i.+pping and mother-wors.h.i.+pping peoples, that bi-s.e.xual deities were conceived of. Nannar, the moon G.o.d, was sometimes addressed as father and mother in one, and Ishtar as a G.o.d as well as a G.o.ddess. In Egypt Isis is referred to in a temple chant as "the woman who was made a male by her father Osiris", and the Nile G.o.d Hapi was depicted as a man with female b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

CHAPTER VIII.

DEIFIED HEROES: ETANA AND GILGAMESH

G.o.d and Heroes and the "Seven Sleepers"--Quests of Etana, Gilgamesh, Hercules, &c.--The Plant of Birth--Eagle carries Etana to Heaven--Indian Parallel--Flights of Nimrod, Alexander the Great, and a Gaelic Hero--Eagle as a G.o.d--Indian Eagle identified with G.o.ds of Creation, Fire, Fertility, and Death--Eagle carries Roman Emperor's Soul to Heaven--Fire and Agricultural Ceremonies--Nimrod of the _Koran_ and John Barleycorn--Gilgamesh and the Eagle--Sargon-Tammuz Garden Myth--Ea-bani compared to Pan, Bast, and Nebuchadnezzar--Exploits of Gilgamesh and Ea-bani--Ishtar's Vengeance--Gilgamesh journeys to Otherworld--Song of Sea Maiden and "Lay of the Harper"--Babylonian Noah and the Plant of Life--Teutonic Parallels--Alexander the Great as Gilgamesh--Water of Life in the _Koran_--The Indian Gilgamesh and Hercules--The Mountain Tunnel in various Mythologies--Widespread Cultural Influences.

One of the oldest forms of folk stories relates to the wanderings of a hero in distant regions. He may set forth in search of a fair lady who has been taken captive, or to obtain a magic herb or stone to relieve a sufferer, to cure diseases, and to prolong life. Invariably he is a slayer of dragons and other monsters. A friendly spirit, or a group of spirits, may a.s.sist the hero, who acts according to the advice given him by a "wise woman", a magician, or a G.o.d. The spirits are usually wild beasts or birds--the "fates" of immemorial folk belief--and they may either carry the hero on their backs, instruct him from time to time, or come to his aid when called upon.

When a great national hero appealed by reason of his achievements to the imagination of a people, all the floating legends of antiquity were attached to his memory, and he became identified with G.o.ds and giants and knight-errants "old in story". In Scotland, for instance, the boulder-throwing giant of Eildon hills bears the name of Wallace, the Edinburgh giant of Arthur's Seat is called after an ancient Celtic king,[190] and Thomas the Rhymer takes the place, in an Inverness fairy mound called Tom-na-hurich, of Finn (Fingal) as chief of the "Seven Sleepers". Similarly Napoleon sleeps in France and Skobeleff in Russia, as do also other heroes elsewhere. In Germany the myths of Thunor (Thor) were mingled with hazy traditions of Theodoric the Goth (Dietrich), while in Greece, Egypt, and Arabia, Alexander the Great absorbed a ma.s.s of legendary matter of great antiquity, and displaced in the memories of the people the heroes of other Ages, as those heroes had previously displaced the humanized spirits of fertility and growth who alternately battled fiercely against the demons of spring, made love, gorged and drank deep and went to sleep--the sleep of winter. Certain folk tales, and the folk beliefs on which they were based, seem to have been of h.o.a.ry antiquity before the close of the Late Stone Age.

There are two great heroes of Babylonian fame who link with Perseus and Hercules, Sigurd and Siegfried, Dietrich and Finn-mac-Coul. These are Etana and Gilgamesh, two legendary kings who resemble Tammuz the Patriarch referred to by Berosus, a form of Tammuz the Sleeper of the Sumerian psalms. One journeys to the Nether World to obtain the Plant of Birth and the other to obtain the Plant of Life. The floating legends with which they were a.s.sociated were utilized and developed by the priests, when engaged in the process of systematizing and symbolizing religious beliefs, with purpose to unfold the secrets of creation and the Otherworld. Etana secures the a.s.sistance or a giant eagle who is an enemy of serpents like the Indian Garuda, half giant, half eagle. As Vishnu, the Indian G.o.d, rides on the back of Garuda, so does Etana ride on the back of the Babylonian Eagle. In one fragmentary legend which was preserved in the tablet-library of Ashur-banipal, the a.s.syrian monarch, Etana obtained the a.s.sistance of the Eagle to go in quest of the Plant of Birth. His wife was about to become a mother, and was accordingly in need of magical aid. A similar belief caused birth girdles of straw or serpent skins, and eagle stones found in eagles' nests, to be used in ancient Britain and elsewhere throughout Europe apparently from the earliest times.[191]

On this or another occasion Etana desired to ascend to highest heaven.

He asked the Eagle to a.s.sist him, and the bird a.s.sented, saying: "Be glad, my friend. Let me bear thee to the highest heaven. Lay thy breast on mine and thine arms on my wings, and let my body be as thy body." Etana did as the great bird requested him, and together they ascended towards the firmament. After a flight which extended over two hours, the Eagle asked Etana to gaze downwards. He did so, and beheld the ocean surrounding the earth, and the earth seemed like a mountainous island. The Eagle resumed its flight, and when another two hours had elapsed, it again asked Etana to look downwards. Then the hero saw that the sea resembled a girdle which clasped the land. Two hours later Etana found that he had been raised to a height from which the sea appeared to be no larger than a pond. By this time he had reached the heaven of Anu, Bel, and Ea, and found there rest and shelter.