Myths of Babylonia and Assyria | Page 2

but consideration must also be given
to the choice of environment by peoples who had adopted distinctive
habits of life. Racial units migrated from cultural areas to districts
suitable for colonization and carried with them a heritage of
immemorial beliefs and customs which were regarded as being quite as
indispensable for their welfare as their implements and domesticated
animals.
When consideration is given in this connection to the conservative
element in primitive religion, it is not surprising to find that the growth
of religious myths was not so spontaneous in early civilizations of the
highest order as has hitherto been assumed. It seems clear that in each
great local mythology we have to deal, in the first place, not with
symbolized ideas so much as symbolized folk beliefs of remote
antiquity and, to a certain degree, of common inheritance. It may not be
found possible to arrive at a conclusive solution of the most widespread,
and therefore the most ancient folk myths, such as, for instance, the
Dragon Myth, or the myth of the culture hero. Nor, perhaps, is it
necessary that we should concern ourselves greatly regarding the origin
of the idea of the dragon, which in one country symbolized fiery
drought and in another overwhelming river floods.
The student will find footing on surer ground by following the process
which exalts the dragon of the folk tale into the symbol of evil and
primordial chaos. The Babylonian Creation Myth, for instance, can be
shown to be a localized and glorified legend in which the hero and his
tribe are displaced by the war god and his fellow deities whose welfare
depends on his prowess. Merodach kills the dragon, Tiamat, as the
heroes of Eur-Asian folk stories kill grisly hags, by casting his weapon
down her throat.
He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart, He overcame her and
cut off her life; He cast down her body and stood upon it ... And with
merciless club he smashed her skull. He cut through the channels of her
blood, And he made the north wind to bear it away into secret places.
Afterwards

He divided the flesh of the _Ku-pu_ and devised a cunning plan.
Mr. L.W. King, from whose scholarly Seven Tablets of Creation these
lines are quoted, notes that "Ku-pu" is a word of uncertain meaning.
Jensen suggests "trunk, body". Apparently Merodach obtained special
knowledge after dividing, and perhaps eating, the "Ku-pu". His
"cunning plan" is set forth in detail: he cut up the dragon's body:
He split her up like a flat fish into two halves.
He formed the heavens with one half and the earth with the other, and
then set the universe in order. His power and wisdom as the Demiurge
were derived from the fierce and powerful Great Mother, Tiamat.
In other dragon stories the heroes devise their plans after eating the
dragon's heart. According to Philostratus,[1] Apollonius of Tyana was
worthy of being remembered for two things--his bravery in travelling
among fierce robber tribes, not then subject to Rome, and his wisdom
in learning the language of birds and other animals as the Arabs do.
This accomplishment the Arabs acquired, Philostratus explains, by
eating the hearts of dragons. The "animals" who utter magic words are,
of course, the Fates. Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied, after slaying the
Regin dragon, makes himself invulnerable by bathing in its blood. He
obtains wisdom by eating the heart: as soon as he tastes it he can
understand the language of birds, and the birds reveal to him that
Mimer is waiting to slay him. Sigurd similarly makes his plans after
eating the heart of the Fafner dragon. In Scottish legend Finn-mac-Coul
obtains the power to divine secrets by partaking of a small portion of
the seventh salmon associated with the "well dragon", and Michael
Scott and other folk heroes become great physicians after tasting the
juices of the middle part of the body of the white snake. The hero of an
Egyptian folk tale slays a "deathless snake" by cutting it in two parts
and putting sand between the parts. He then obtains from the box, of
which it is the guardian, the book of spells; when he reads a page of the
spells he knows what the birds of the sky, the fish of the deep, and the
beasts of the hill say; the book gives him power to enchant "the heaven
and the earth, the abyss, the mountains and the sea".[2]

Magic and religion were never separated in Babylonia; not only the
priests but also the gods performed magical ceremonies. Ea,
Merodach's father, overcame Apsu, the husband of the dragon Tiamat,
by means of spells: he was "the great magician of the gods".
Merodach's division of the "Ku-pu" was evidently an act of contagious
magic; by