DEMONS, FAIRIES, AND GHOSTS
Spirits in Everything and Everywhere--The Bringers of Luck and
Misfortune--Germ Theory Anticipated--Early Gods indistinguishable
from Demons--Repulsive form of Ea--Spirit Groups as Attendants of
Deities--Egyptian, Indian, Greek, and Germanic parallels--Elder Gods
as Evil Gods--Animal Demons--The Babylonian
"Will-o'-the-Wisp"--"Foreign Devils"--Elves and Fairies--Demon
Lovers--"Adam's first wife, Lilith"--Children Charmed against Evil
Spirits--The Demon of Nightmare--Ghosts as Enemies of the
Living--The Vengeful Dead Mother in Babylonia, India, Europe, and
Mexico--Burial Contrast--Calling Back the Dead--Fate of Childless
Ghosts--Religious Need for Offspring--Hags and Giants and Composite
Monsters--Tempest Fiends--Legend of Adapa and the Storm Demon--Wind
Hags of Ancient Britain--Tyrolese Storm Maidens--Zu Bird Legend and
Indian Garuda Myth--Legend of the Eagle and the Serpent--The Snake
Mother Goddess--Demons and the Moon God--Plague
Deities--Classification of Spirits, and Egyptian, Arabian, and
Scottish parallels--Traces of Progress from Animism to Monotheism.
The memorable sermon preached by Paul to the Athenians when he stood
"in the midst of Mars' hill", could have been addressed with equal
appropriateness to the ancient Sumerians and Akkadians. "I perceive",
he declared, "that in all things ye are too superstitious.... God that
made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of
heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is
worshipped with men's hands as though he needed any thing, seeing he
giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ... for in him we live,
and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have
said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the
offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto
gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device."[78]
Babylonian temples were houses of the gods in the literal sense; the
gods were supposed to dwell in them, their spirits having entered into
the graven images or blocks of stone. It is probable that like the
Ancient Egyptians they believed a god had as many spirits as he had
attributes. The gods, as we have said, appear to have evolved from
early spirit groups. All the world swarmed with spirits, which
inhabited stones and trees, mountains and deserts, rivers and ocean,
the air, the sky, the stars, and the sun and moon. The spirits
controlled Nature: they brought light and darkness, sunshine and
storm, summer and winter; they were manifested in the thunderstorm,
the sandstorm, the glare of sunset, and the wraiths of mist rising
from the steaming marshes. They controlled also the lives of men and
women. The good spirits were the source of luck. The bad spirits
caused misfortunes, and were ever seeking to work evil against the
Babylonian. Darkness was peopled by demons and ghosts of the dead. The
spirits of disease were ever lying in wait to clutch him with cruel
invisible hands.
Some modern writers, who are too prone to regard ancient peoples from
a twentieth-century point of view, express grave doubts as to whether
"intelligent Babylonians" really believed that spirits came down in
the rain and entered the soil to rise up before men's eyes as stalks
of barley or wheat. There is no reason for supposing that they thought
otherwise. The early folks based their theories on the accumulated
knowledge of their age. They knew nothing regarding the composition of
water or the atmosphere, of the cause of thunder and lightning, or of
the chemical changes effected in soils by the action of bacteria. They
attributed all natural phenomena to the operations of spirits or gods.
In believing that certain demons caused certain diseases, they may be
said to have achieved distinct progress, for they anticipated the germ
theory. They made discoveries, too, which have been approved and
elaborated in later times when they lit sacred fires, bathed in sacred
waters, and used oils and herbs to charm away spirits of pestilence.
Indeed, many folk cures, which were originally associated with magical
ceremonies, are still practised in our own day. They were found to be
effective by early observers, although they were unable to explain why
and how cures were accomplished, like modern scientific investigators.
In peopling the Universe with spirits, the Babylonians, like other
ancient folks, betrayed that tendency to symbolize everything which
has ever appealed to the human mind. Our painters and poets and
sculptors are greatest when they symbolize their ideals and ideas and
impressions, and by so doing make us respond to their moods. Their
"beauty and their terror are sublime". But what may seem poetic to us,
was invariably a grim reality to the Babylonians. The statue or
picture was not merely a work of art but a manifestation of the god or
demon. As has been said, they believed that the spirit of the god
inhabited the idol; the frown of the brazen image was the frown of the
wicked demon. They entertained as much dread of the winged and
human-headed bulls guarding the entrance to the royal palace as do
some of the Arab workmen who, in our own day, assist excavators to
rescue them from sandy mounds in which they have been hidden for long
centuries.
When an idol was carried away from a city by an invading army, it was
believed that the god himself had been taken prisoner, and was
therefore unable any longer to help his people.
In the early stages of Sumerian culture, the gods and goddesses who
formed groups were indistinguishable from demons. They were vaguely
defined, and had changing shapes. When attempts were made to depict
them they were represented in many varying forms. Some were winged
bulls or lions with human heads; others had even more remarkable
composite forms. The "dragon of Babylon", for instance, which was
portrayed on walls of temples, had a serpent's head, a body covered
with scales, the fore legs of a lion, hind legs of an eagle, and a
long wriggling serpentine tail. Ea had several monster forms. The
following description of one of these is repulsive enough:--
The head is the head of a serpent,
From his nostrils mucus trickles,
His mouth is beslavered with water;
The ears are like those of a basilisk,
His horns are twisted into three curls,
He wears a veil in his head band,
The body is a suh-fish full of stars,
The base of his feet are claws,
The sole of his foot has no heel,
His name is Sassu-wunnu,
A sea monster, a form of Ea.
_R.C. Thompson's Translation._[79]
Even after the gods were given beneficent attributes to reflect the
growth of culture, and were humanized, they still retained many of
their savage characteristics. Bel Enlil and his fierce son, Nergal,
were destroyers of mankind; the storm god desolated the land; the sky
god deluged it with rain; the sea raged furiously, ever hungering for
human victims; the burning sun struck down its victims; and the floods
played havoc with the dykes and houses of human beings. In Egypt the
sun god Ra was similarly a "producer of calamity", the composite
monster god Sokar was "the lord of fear".[80] Osiris in prehistoric
times had been "a dangerous god", and some of the Pharaohs sought
protection against him in the charms inscribed in their tombs.[81] The
Indian Shiva, "the Destroyer", in the old religious poems has also
primitive attributes of like character.
The Sumerian gods never lost their connection with the early spirit
groups. These continued to be represented by their attendants, who
executed a deity's stern and vengeful decrees. In one of the
Babylonian charms the demons are referred to as "the spleen of the
gods"--the symbols of their wrathful emotions and vengeful desires.
Bel Enlil, the air and earth god, was served by the demons of disease,
"the beloved sons of Bel", which issued from the Underworld to attack
mankind. Nergal, the sulky and ill-tempered lord of death and
destruction, who never lost his demoniac character, swept over the
land, followed by the spirits of pestilence, sunstroke, weariness, and
destruction. Anu, the sky god, had "spawned" at creation the demons of
cold and rain and darkness. Even Ea and his consort, Damkina, were
served by groups of devils and giants, which preyed upon mankind in
bleak and desolate places when night fell. In the ocean home of Ea
were bred the "seven evil spirits" of tempest--the gaping dragon, the
leopard which preyed upon children, the great Beast, the terrible
serpent, &c.
In Indian mythology Indra was similarly followed by the stormy Maruts,
and fierce Rudra by the tempestuous Rudras. In Teutonic mythology Odin
is the "Wild Huntsman in the Raging Host". In Greek mythology the
ocean furies attend upon fickle Poseidon. Other examples of this kind
could be multiplied.
As we have seen (Chapter II) the earliest group of Babylonian deities
consisted probably of four pairs of gods and goddesses as in Egypt.
The first pair was Apsu-Rishtu and Tiamat, who personified the
primordial deep. Now the elder deities in most mythologies--the
"grandsires" and "grandmothers" and "fathers" and "mothers"--are ever
the most powerful and most vengeful. They appear to represent
primitive "layers" of savage thought. The Greek Cronos devours even
his own children, and, as the late Andrew Lang has shown, there are
many parallels to this myth among primitive peoples in various parts
of the world.
Lang regarded the Greek survival as an example of "the conservatism of
the religious instinct".[82] The grandmother of the Teutonic deity Tyr
was a fierce giantess with nine hundred heads; his father was an enemy
of the gods. In Scotland the hag-mother of winter and storm and
darkness is the enemy of growth and all life, and she raises storms to
stop the grass growing, to slay young animals, and prevent the union
of her son with his fair bride. Similarly the Babylonian chaos
spirits, Apsu and Tiamat, the father and mother of the gods, resolve
to destroy their offspring, because they begin to set the Universe in
order. Tiamat, the female dragon, is more powerful than her husband
Apsu, who is slain by his son Ea. She summons to her aid the gods of
evil, and creates also a brood of monsters--serpents, dragons, vipers,
fish men, raging hounds, &c.--so as to bring about universal and
enduring confusion and evil. Not until she is destroyed can the
beneficent gods establish law and order and make the earth habitable
and beautiful.
But although Tiamat was slain, the everlasting battle between the
forces of good and evil was ever waged in the Babylonian world.
Certain evil spirits were let loose at certain periods, and they
strove to accomplish the destruction of mankind and his works. These
invisible enemies were either charmed away by performing magical
ceremonies, or by invoking the gods to thwart them and bind them.
Other spirits inhabited the bodies of animals and were ever hovering
near. The ghosts of the dead and male and female demons were birds,
like the birds of Fate which sang to Siegfried. When the owl raised
its melancholy voice in the darkness the listener heard the spirit of
a departed mother crying for her child. Ghosts and evil spirits
wandered through the streets in darkness; they haunted empty houses;
they fluttered through the evening air as bats; they hastened, moaning
dismally, across barren wastes searching for food or lay in wait for
travellers; they came as roaring lions and howling jackals, hungering
for human flesh. The "shedu" was a destructive bull which might slay
man wantonly or as a protector of temples. Of like character was the
"lamassu", depicted as a winged bull with human head, the protector of
palaces; the "alu" was a bull-like demon of tempest, and there were
also many composite, distorted, or formless monsters which were
vaguely termed "seizers" or "overthrowers", the Semitic "labashu" and
"ach-chazu", the Sumerian "dimmea" and "dimme-kur". A dialectic form
of "gallu" or devil was "mulla". Professor Pinches thinks it not
improbable that "mulla" may be connected with the word "mula", meaning
"star", and suggests that it referred to a "will-o'-the-wisp".[83] In
these islands, according to an old rhyme,
Some call him Robin Good-fellow,
Hob-goblin, or mad Crisp,
And some againe doe tearme him oft
By name of Will the Wisp.
Other names are "Kitty", "Peg", and "Jack with a lantern". "Poor
Robin" sang:
I should indeed as soon expect
That Peg-a-lantern would direct
Me straightway home on misty night
As wand'ring stars, quite out of sight.
In Shakespeare's _Tempest_[84] a sailor exclaims: "Your fairy, which,
you say, is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played the
Jack with us". Dr. Johnson commented that the reference was to "Jack
with a lantern". Milton wrote also of the "wandering fire",
Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads th' amaz'd night wand'rer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;
There swallowed up and lost from succour far.[85]
"When we stick in the mire", sang Drayton, "he doth with laughter
leave us." These fires were also "fallen stars", "death fires", and
"fire drakes":
So have I seen a fire drake glide along
Before a dying man, to point his grave,
And in it stick and hide.[86]
Pliny referred to the wandering lights as stars.[87] The Sumerian
"mulla" was undoubtedly an evil spirit. In some countries the "fire
drake" is a bird with gleaming breast: in Babylonia it assumed the
form of a bull, and may have had some connection with the bull of
lshtar. Like the Indian "Dasyu" and "Dasa",[88] Gallu was applied in
the sense of "foreign devil" to human and superhuman adversaries of
certain monarchs. Some of the supernatural beings resemble our elves
and fairies and the Indian Rakshasas. Occasionally they appear in
comely human guise; at other times they are vaguely monstrous. The
best known of this class is Lilith, who, according to Hebrew
tradition, preserved in the Talmud, was the demon lover of Adam. She
has been immortalized by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:
Of Adam's first wife Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve)
That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.
Lilith is the Babylonian Lilithu, a feminine form of Lilu, the
Sumerian Lila. She resembles Surpanakha of the _Ramayana_, who made
love to Rama and Lakshmana, and the sister of the demon Hidimva, who
became enamoured of Bhima, one of the heroes of the _Mahabharata_,[89]
and the various fairy lovers of Europe who lured men to eternal
imprisonment inside mountains, or vanished for ever when they were
completely under their influence, leaving them demented. The elfin
Lilu similarly wooed young women, like the Germanic Laurin of the
"Wonderful Rose Garden",[90] who carried away the fair lady Kunhild to
his underground dwelling amidst the Tyrolese mountains, or left them
haunting the place of their meetings, searching for him in vain:
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As ere beneath the waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover...
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
_Coleridge's Kubla Khan._
Another materializing spirit of this class was Ardat Lili, who appears
to have wedded human beings like the swan maidens, the mermaids, and
Nereids of the European folk tales, and the goddess Ganga, who for a
time was the wife of King Shantanu of the _Mahabharata_.[91]
The Labartu, to whom we have referred, was a female who haunted
mountains and marshes; like the fairies and hags of Europe, she stole
or afflicted children, who accordingly had to wear charms round their
necks for protection. Seven of these supernatural beings were reputed
to be daughters of Anu, the sky god.
The Alu, a storm deity, was also a spirit which caused nightmare. It
endeavoured to smother sleepers like the Scandinavian hag Mara, and
similarly deprived them of power to move. In Babylonia this evil
spirit might also cause sleeplessness or death by hovering near a bed.
In shape it might be as horrible and repulsive as the Egyptian ghosts
which caused children to die from fright or by sucking out the breath
of life.
As most representatives of the spirit world were enemies of the
living, so were the ghosts of dead men and women. Death chilled all
human affections; it turned love to hate; the deeper the love had
been, the deeper became the enmity fostered by the ghost. Certain
ghosts might also be regarded as particularly virulent and hostile if
they happened to have left the body of one who was ceremonially
impure. The most terrible ghost in Babylonia was that of a woman who
had died in childbed. She was pitied and dreaded; her grief had
demented her; she was doomed to wail in the darkness; her impurity
clung to her like poison. No spirit was more prone to work evil
against mankind, and her hostility was accompanied by the most tragic
sorrow. In Northern India the Hindus, like the ancient Babylonians,
regard as a fearsome demon the ghost of a woman who died while
pregnant, or on the day of the child's birth.[92] A similar belief
prevailed in Mexico. In Europe there are many folk tales of dead
mothers who return to avenge themselves on the cruel fathers of
neglected children.
A sharp contrast is presented by the Mongolian Buriats, whose outlook
on the spirit world is less gloomy than was that of the ancient
Babylonians. According to Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, this interesting people
are wont to perform a ceremony with purpose to entice the ghost to
return to the dead body--a proceeding which is dreaded in the Scottish
Highlands.[93] The Buriats address the ghost, saying: "You shall sleep
well. Come back to your natural ashes. Take pity on your friends. It
is necessary to live a real life. Do not wander along the mountains.
Do not be like bad spirits. Return to your peaceful home.... Come back
and work for your children. How can you leave the little ones?" If it
is a mother, these words have great effect; sometimes the spirit moans
and sobs, and the Buriats tell that there have been instances of it
returning to the body.[94] In his _Arabia Deserta_[95] Doughty relates
that Arab women and children mock the cries of the owl. One explained
to him: "It is a wailful woman seeking her lost child; she has become
this forlorn bird". So do immemorial beliefs survive to our own day.
The Babylonian ghosts of unmarried men and women and of those without
offspring were also disconsolate night wanderers. Others who suffered
similar fates were the ghosts of men who died in battle far from home
and were left unburied, the ghosts of travellers who perished in the
desert and were not covered over, the ghosts of drowned men which rose
from the water, the ghosts of prisoners starved to death or executed,
the ghosts of people who died violent deaths before their appointed
time. The dead required to be cared for, to have libations poured out,
to be fed, so that they might not prowl through the streets or enter
houses searching for scraps of food and pure water. The duty of giving
offerings to the dead was imposed apparently on near relatives. As in
India, it would appear that the eldest son performed the funeral
ceremony: a dreadful fate therefore awaited the spirit of the dead
Babylonian man or woman without offspring. In Sanskrit literature
there is a reference to a priest who was not allowed to enter
Paradise, although he had performed rigid penances, because he had no
children.[96]
There were hags and giants of mountain and desert, of river and ocean.
Demons might possess the pig, the goat, the horse, the lion, or the
ibis, the raven, or the hawk. The seven spirits of tempest, fire, and
destruction rose from the depths of ocean, and there were hosts of
demons which could not be overcome or baffled by man without the
assistance of the gods to whom they were hostile. Many were sexless;
having no offspring, they were devoid of mercy and compassion. They
penetrated everywhere:
The high enclosures, the broad enclosures, like a flood
they pass through,
From house to house they dash along.
No door can shut them out;
No bolt can turn them back.
Through the door, like a snake, they glide,
Through the hinge, like the wind, they storm,
Tearing the wife from the embrace of the man,
Driving the freedman from his family home.[97]
These furies did not confine their unwelcomed attentions to mankind
alone:
They hunt the doves from their cotes,
And drive the birds from their nests,
And chase the marten from its hole....
Through the gloomy street by night they roam,
Smiting sheepfold and cattle pen,
Shutting up the land as with door and bolt.
_R.C. Thompson's Translation._
The Babylonian poet, like Burns, was filled with pity for the animals
which suffered in the storm:
List'ning the doors an' winnocks rattle,
I thought me o' the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' winter war....
Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!
That in the merry months o' spring
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
What comes o' thee?
Whare wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing,
And close thy e'e?
According to Babylonian belief, "the great storms directed from
heaven" were caused by demons. Mankind heard them "loudly roaring
above, gibbering below".[98] The south wind was raised by Shutu, a
plumed storm demon resembling Hraesvelgur of the Icelandic Eddas:
Corpse-swallower sits at the end of heaven,
A Jötun in eagle form;
From his wings, they say, comes the wind which fares
Over all the dwellers of earth.[99]
The northern story of Thor's fishing, when he hooked and wounded the
Midgard serpent, is recalled by the Babylonian legend of Adapa, son of
the god Ea. This hero was engaged catching fish, when Shutu, the south
wind, upset his boat. In his wrath Adapa immediately attacked the
storm demon and shattered her pinions. Anu, the sky god, was moved to
anger against Ea's son and summoned him to the Celestial Court. Adapa,
however, appeared in garments of mourning and was forgiven. Anu
offered him the water of life and the bread of life which would have
made him immortal, but Ea's son refused to eat or drink, believing, as
his father had warned him, that the sky god desired him to partake of
the bread of death and to drink of the water of death.
Another terrible atmospheric demon was the south-west wind, which
caused destructive storms and floods, and claimed many human victims
like the Icelandic "corpse swallower". She was depicted with lidless
staring eyes, broad flat nose, mouth gaping horribly, and showing
tusk-like teeth, and with high cheek bones, heavy eyebrows, and low
bulging forehead.
In Scotland the hag of the south-west wind is similarly a bloodthirsty
and fearsome demon. She is most virulent in the springtime. At
Cromarty she is quaintly called "Gentle Annie" by the fisher folks,
who repeat the saying: "When Gentle Annie is skyawlan (yelling) roond
the heel of Ness (a promontory) wi' a white feather on her hat (the
foam of big billows) they (the spirits) will be harrying (robbing) the
crook"--that is, the pot which hangs from the crook is empty during
the spring storms, which prevent fishermen going to sea. In England
the wind hag is Black Annis, who dwells in a Leicestershire hill cave.
She may be identical with the Irish hag Anu, associated with the "Paps
of Anu". According to Gaelic lore, this wind demon of spring is the
"Cailleach" (old wife). She gives her name in the Highland calendar to
the stormy period of late spring; she raises gale after gale to
prevent the coming of summer. Angerboda, the Icelandic hag, is also a
storm demon, but represents the east wind. A Tyrolese folk tale tells
of three magic maidens who dwelt on Jochgrimm mountain, where they
"brewed the winds". Their demon lovers were Ecke, "he who causes
fear"; Vasolt, "he who causes dismay"; and the scornful Dietrich in
his mythical character of Donar or Thunor (Thor), the thunderer.
Another Sumerian storm demon was the Zu bird, which is represented
among the stars by Pegasus and Taurus. A legend relates that this
"worker of evil, who raised the head of evil", once aspired to rule
the gods, and stole from Bel, "the lord" of deities, the Tablets of
Destiny, which gave him his power over the Universe as controller of
the fates of all. The Zu bird escaped with the Tablets and found
shelter on its mountain top in Arabia. Anu called on Ramman, the
thunderer, to attack the Zu bird, but he was afraid; other gods appear
to have shrunk from the conflict. How the rebel was overcome is not
certain, because the legend survives in fragmentary form. There is a
reference, however, to the moon god setting out towards the mountain
in Arabia with purpose to outwit the Zu bird and recover the lost
Tablets. How he fared it is impossible to ascertain. In another
legend--that of Etana--the mother serpent, addressing the sun god,
Shamash, says:
Thy net is like unto the broad earth;
Thy snare is like unto the distant heaven!
Who hath ever escaped from thy net?
Even Zu, the worker of evil, who raised the head
of evil [did not escape]!
_L.W. King's Translation._
In Indian mythology, Garuda, half giant, half eagle, robs the Amrita
(ambrosia) of the gods which gives them their power and renders them
immortal. It had assumed a golden body, bright as the sun. Indra, the
thunderer, flung his bolt in vain; he could not wound Garuda, and only
displaced a single feather. Afterwards, however, he stole the moon
goblet containing the Amrita, which Garuda had delivered to his
enemies, the serpents, to free his mother from bondage. This Indian
eagle giant became the vehicle of the god Vishnu, and, according to
the _Mahabharata_, "mocked the wind with his fleetness".
It would appear that the Babylonian Zu bird symbolized the summer
sandstorms from the Arabian desert. Thunder is associated with the
rainy season, and it may have been assumed, therefore, that the
thunder god was powerless against the sandstorm demon, who was chased,
however, by the moon, and finally overcome by the triumphant sun when
it broke through the darkening sand drift and brightened heaven and
earth, "netting" the rebellious demon who desired to establish the
rule of evil over gods and mankind.
In the "Legend of Etana" the Eagle, another demon which links with the
Indian Garuda, slayer of serpents, devours the brood of the Mother
Serpent. For this offence against divine law, Shamash, the sun god,
pronounces the Eagle's doom. He instructs the Mother Serpent to slay a
wild ox and conceal herself in its entrails. The Eagle comes to feed
on the carcass, unheeding the warning of one of his children, who
says, "The serpent lies in this wild ox":
He swooped down and stood upon the wild ox,
The Eagle ... examined the flesh;
He looked about carefully before and behind him;
He again examined the flesh;
He looked about carefully before and behind him,
Then, moving swiftly, he made for the hidden parts.
When he entered into the midst,
The serpent seized him by his wing.
In vain the Eagle appealed for mercy to the Mother Serpent, who was
compelled to execute the decree of Shamash; she tore off the Eagle's
pinions, wings, and claws, and threw him into a pit where he perished
from hunger and thirst.[100] This myth may refer to the ravages of a
winged demon of disease who was thwarted by the sacrifice of an ox.
The Mother Serpent appears to be identical with an ancient goddess of
maternity resembling the Egyptian Bast, the serpent mother of
Bubastis. According to Sumerian belief, Nintu, "a form of the goddess
Ma", was half a serpent. On her head there is a horn; she is "girt
about the loins"; her left arm holds "a babe suckling her breast":
From her head to her loins
The body is that of a naked woman;
From the loins to the sole of the foot
Scales like those of a snake are visible.
_R.C. Thompson's Translation._
The close association of gods and demons is illustrated in an obscure
myth which may refer to an eclipse of the moon or a night storm at the
beginning of the rainy season. The demons go to war against the high
gods, and are assisted by Adad (Ramman) the thunderer, Shamash the
sun, and Ishtar. They desire to wreck the heavens, the home of Anu:
They clustered angrily round the crescent of the moon god,
And won over to their aid Shamash, the mighty, and Adad, the
warrior,
And Ishtar, who with Anu, the King,
Hath founded a shining dwelling.
The moon god Sin, "the seed of mankind", was darkened by the demons
who raged, "rushing loose over the land" like to the wind. Bel called
upon his messenger, whom he sent to Ea in the ocean depths, saying:
"My son Sin ... hath been grievously bedimmed". Ea lamented, and
dispatched his son Merodach to net the demons by magic, using "a
two-coloured cord from the hair of a virgin kid and from the wool of a
virgin lamb".[101]
As in India, where Shitala, the Bengali goddess of smallpox, for
instance, is worshipped when the dreaded disease she controls becomes
epidemic, so in Babylonia the people sought to secure immunity from
attack by worshipping spirits of disease. A tablet relates that Ura, a
plague demon, once resolved to destroy all life, but ultimately
consented to spare those who praised his name and exalted him in
recognition of his bravery and power. This could be accomplished by
reciting a formula. Indian serpent worshippers believe that their
devotions "destroy all danger proceeding from snakes".[102]
Like the Ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians also had their kindly
spirits who brought luck and the various enjoyments of life. A good
"labartu" might attend on a human being like a household fairy of
India or Europe: a friendly "shedu" could protect a household against
the attacks of fierce demons and human enemies. Even the spirits of
Fate who served Anu, god of the sky, and that "Norn" of the
Underworld, Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades, might sometimes be
propitious: if the deities were successfully invoked they could cause
the Fates to smite spirits of disease and bringers of ill luck. Damu,
a friendly fairy goddess, was well loved, because she inspired
pleasant dreams, relieved the sufferings of the afflicted, and
restored to good health those patients whom she selected to favour.
In the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_ the kindly spirits are overshadowed
by the evil ones, because the various magical spells which were put on
record were directed against those supernatural beings who were
enemies of mankind. Similarly in Babylonia the fragments of this class
of literature which survive deal mainly with wicked and vengeful
demons. It appears probable, however, that the highly emotional
Sumerians and Akkadians were on occasion quite as cheerful a people as
the inhabitants of ancient Egypt. Although they were surrounded by
bloodthirsty furies who desired to shorten their days, and their
nights were filled with vague lowering phantoms which inspired fear,
they no doubt shared, in their charm-protected houses, a comfortable
feeling of security after performing magical ceremonies, and were
happy enough when they gathered round flickering lights to listen to
ancient song and story and gossip about crops and traders, the members
of the royal house, and the family affairs of their acquaintances.
The Babylonian spirit world, it will be seen, was of complex
character. Its inhabitants were numberless, but often vaguely defined,
and one class of demons linked with another. Like the European fairies
of folk belief, the Babylonian spirits were extremely hostile and
irresistible at certain seasonal periods; and they were fickle and
perverse and difficult to please even when inclined to be friendly.
They were also similarly manifested from time to time in various
forms. Sometimes they were comely and beautiful; at other times they
were apparitions of horror. The Jinn of present-day Arabians are of
like character; these may be giants, cloudy shapes, comely women,
serpents or cats, goats or pigs.
Some of the composite monsters of Babylonia may suggest the vague and
exaggerated recollections of terror-stricken people who have had
glimpses of unfamiliar wild beasts in the dusk or amidst reedy
marshes. But they cannot be wholly accounted for in this way. While
animals were often identified with supernatural beings, and foreigners
were called "devils", it would be misleading to assert that the spirit
world reflects confused folk memories of human and bestial enemies.
Even when a demon was given concrete human form it remained
essentially non-human: no ordinary weapon could inflict an injury, and
it was never controlled by natural laws. The spirits of disease and
tempest and darkness were creations of fancy: they symbolized moods;
they were the causes which explained effects. A sculptor or
storyteller who desired to convey an impression of a spirit of storm
or pestilence created monstrous forms to inspire terror. Sudden and
unexpected visits of fierce and devastating demons were accounted for
by asserting that they had wings like eagles, were nimble-footed as
gazelles, cunning and watchful as serpents; that they had claws to
clutch, horns to gore, and powerful fore legs like a lion to smite
down victims. Withal they drank blood like ravens and devoured corpses
like hyaenas. Monsters were all the more repulsive when they were
partly human. The human-headed snake or the snake-headed man and the
man with the horns of a wild bull and the legs of a goat were horrible
in the extreme. Evil spirits might sometimes achieve success by
practising deception. They might appear as beautiful girls or handsome
men and seize unsuspecting victims in deathly embrace or leave them
demented and full of grief, or come as birds and suddenly assume
awesome shapes.
Fairies and elves, and other half-human demons, are sometimes regarded
as degenerate gods. It will be seen, however, that while certain
spirits developed into deities, others remained something between
these two classes of supernatural beings: they might attend upon gods
and goddesses, or operate independently now against mankind and now
against deities even. The "namtaru", for instance, was a spirit of
fate, the son of Bel-Enlil and Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades.
"Apparently", writes Professor Pinches, "he executed the instructions
given him concerning the fate of men, and could also have power over
certain of the gods."[103] To this middle class belong the evil gods
who rebelled against the beneficent deities. According to Hebridean
folk belief, the fallen angels are divided into three classes--the
fairies, the "nimble men" (aurora borealis), and the "blue men of the
Minch". In _Beowulf_ the "brood of Cain" includes "monsters and elves
and sea-devils--giants also, who long time fought with God, for which
he gave them their reward".[104] Similarly the Babylonian spirit
groups are liable to division and subdivision. The various classes may
be regarded as relics of the various stages of development from crude
animism to sublime monotheism: in the fragmentary legends we trace the
floating material from which great mythologies have been framed.