fe.
He threw down her corpse; he stood upon it."[28:2]

The battle over and the enemy slain, Merodach considered how to dispose
of the corpse.

"He strengthens his mind, he forms a clever plan,
And he stripped her of her skin like a fish, according to his
plan."[28:3]

Of one half of the corpse of Tiamat he formed the earth, and of the
other half, the heavens. He then proceded to furnish the heavens and the
earth with their respective equipments; the details of this work
occupying apparently the fifth, sixth, and seventh tablets of the
series.

Under ordinary circumstances such a legend as the foregoing would not
have attracted much attention. It is as barbarous and unintelligent as
any myth of Zulu or Fijian. Strictly speaking, it is not a Creation myth
at all. Tiamat and her serpent-brood and the gods are all existent
before Merodach commences his work, and all that the god effects is a
reconstruction of the world. The method of this reconstruction possesses
no features superior to those of the Creation myths of other barbarous
nations. Our own Scandinavian ancestors had a similar one, the setting
of which was certainly not inferior to the grotesque battle of Merodach
with Tiamat. The prose Edda tells us that the first man, Bur, was the
father of Boer, who was in turn the father of Odin and his two brothers
Vili and Ve. These sons of Boer slew Ymir, the old frost giant.

"They dragged the body of Ymir into the middle of Ginnungagap,
and of it formed the earth. From Ymir's blood they made the
sea and waters; from his flesh, the land; from his bones, the
mountains; and his teeth and jaws, together with some bits of
broken bones, served them to make the stones and pebbles."

It will be seen that there is a remarkable likeness between the
Babylonian and Scandinavian myths in the central and essential feature
of each, viz. the way in which the world is supposed to have been built
up by the gods from the fragments of the anatomy of a huge primaeval
monster. Yet it is not urged that there is any direct genetic connection
between the two; that the Babylonians either taught their legend to the
Scandinavians or learnt it from them.

Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly have occurred to any one to
try to derive the monotheistic narrative of Gen. i. from either of these
pagan myths, crowded as they are with uncouth and barbarous details. But
it happened that Mr.