d feature of Merodach
worship, had previously become pronounced in the worship of Bel Enlil
of Nippur. Although it did not affect the religion of the masses, 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-worshipping and mother-worshipping peoples, that bi-sexual
deities were conceived of. Nannar, the moon god, was sometimes
addressed as father and mother in one, and Ishtar as a god as well as
a goddess. 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 god Hapi
was depicted as a man with female breasts.

CHAPTER VIII.

DEIFIED HEROES: ETANA AND GILGAMESH

God 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 God--Indian Eagle identified with Gods 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 ot