WHAT’S THE STORY?
I said this section would cover an event, object or journey, and I’d like to begin with the latter. A rare recounting of a quest undertaken by a female protagonist, and her revenge on her husband.
From the myths of Babylon, then, here is
Ishtar’s Descent into the World Below
Ishtar was one of the most powerful goddesses in Babylonian myth, and given that the Mesopotemians, including Sumerians, Akkadians and Assyrians all worshipped her and her pantheon, names cross and get mixed up, but I’m going to stick with the ones I know. So Ishtar, for reasons I can’t quite figure out, though it may have to do with attending the funeral rites for her sister’s husband, decided to descend into the underworld. Knowing beforehand how dangerous it was to enter her sister's dark realm, from which none could return, Ishtar charged her servant, Ninshubur, to wait for three days, and if she did not return to petition the gods Enkil, Nanna, Anu and Enki to engineer her return. Clothing herself in her most magnificent regalia she presented herself at the first of the seven gates of the underworld, where a doorkeeper refused to let her in. She threatened him with dire consequences if she was not admitted:
“If thou openest not the gate I shall smite upon it, I shall shatter the bolt and beat down the doors! Yea, i shall bring away the Dead that are under the rule of thy mistress! I shall raise up the Dead so that they shall devour the Living, and the Dead shall outnumber the Living!”
The Place of the Dead was surrounded by seven walls, with seven gates, and this one was only the first. Nedu, the gatekeeper, fearful of the mighty Queen of Heaven, rushed to his mistress Ereshkigal, ruler of the Dead, for instructions. She, angered at the temerity of her sister, told Nedu to go back and let her through the gate, but to do so according to “ancient usage”. The dead were not supposed to bring anything with them into the cold place, so as Nedu bowed to the wishes of both his mistress and those of Ishtar, he removed the crown from her head. She, surprised and not a little indignant at such treatment, suffered it in order to gain admittance. At the second gate, the next watchman would only allow her to pass once she had surrendered the great necklace of power, the eight-rayed star. At the third gate she was divested of her bracelets of gold and lapis lazuli and allowed to pass.
At the fourth gate her shoes, at the fifth her veil, and at the sixth her outer robe was taken from her, until she finally stood at the last wall, the last gate barring her entrance to the dread realm. In order to pass this she would have to be naked, and so she gave up her clothes to the final gatekeeper and entered the realm of Ereshkigal, without power, radiance, majesty or beauty, and without, it must be said, the courage that had brought her here with such arrogance and confidence when she retained all the symbols of her power.
Seeing the dead, who were in a terrible state, she began to fear she might never leave this dread place, and begged Ereshkigal to be allowed return. The Mistress of the Dead, however, gloated
“Thou art now in the land whence none return, in the place of darkness. Thou art in the House of Darkness, the house from which none who enter come forth again. Thou hast taken the road whose course returns not; thou art in the house where they who enter are excluded from light, in the place where dust is their bread and mud their food, where they behold not the light, where they dwell in darkness, and are clothed like birds in garments of feathers. Over the door and across the bolt the dust is scattered.”
Which I guess means “You in MY house now, biatch! You ain’t nothin’ without your fancy bling, and you can forget going home, nomsayin?”
Or something.
Anyway, Ereshkigal took her revenge for the temerity with which Ishtar had travelled to her realm and her authoritative, even condescending and commanding way of addressing the gatekeepers, demanding entrance. Well now, she had gained admittance, and the ruler of the dark places would make her regret it. She called on Namtar the demon to afflict Ishtar with plagues, which he did, and the Queen of Heaven became nothing more than one of the innumerable Dead, another lost soul in Ereshkigal’s realm, another supplicant to her power, another anonymous subject. Here’s what the Babylonian text says about it.
"After she had crouched down and had her clothes removed, they were carried away. Then she made her sister Erec-ki-gala rise from her throne, and instead she sat on her throne. The Anna, the seven judges, rendered their decision against her. They looked at her – it was the look of death. They spoke to her – it was the speech of anger. They shouted at her – it was the shout of heavy guilt. The afflicted woman was turned into a corpse. And the corpse was hung on a hook.”
Trapped in the underworld, Ishtar’s absence had a terrible effect on the surface. Being among other things goddess of love and sex, there was no physical copulation any more on the earth. Animals did not mate, humans did not engage in sex. Everything was grim and loveless. Seeing this, and fearing for her mistress, Ninshubur carried out Ishar’s instructions and went to the gods. Three of them refused to help but Enki saw with alarm the earth was dying; if nobody made love, if no children came forth, both men and beasts would die out and the world would be left barren. So he agreed to help. Fashioning two sexless beings over whom Ereshkigal would have no power in her realm, he sent them to demand from the goddess of death the water of life, which could be sprinkled over Ishtar’s corpse and bring her back to life.
Ereshkigal, of course, tried everything to dissuade, threaten or cajole the two beings from their course but they were immovable, and she had to provide the water of life, which revived Ishtar. Unable to stop them taking her sister, Ereshkigal sent demons to pursue her, demanding a replacement. The demons first tried to take Ninshubur, but as she had correctly mourned her mistress and carried out her wishes, Ishtar would not allow it. The same with another servant, Shara, and a third, Lulal, until finally they came across Dumuzid, Ishtar’s husband, who, rather than mourning her had been living it up in her absence. Big mistake! Ishtar agreed to allow the demons to take her husband in her place, and Dumuzid was dragged down to Ereshkigal’s domain.
MYTHOLOGY MISCELLANY
And now we reach down into the grab-bag of assorted mythologies to come up with…
Native American myths.
All right then. This is from the legends and tales of the Sioux people, one of the most famous tribes in western history. Flourishing originally along the banks of Lake Superior they moved south into Minnesota before being forced off their lands by the US Government and ending their days on reservations. But before they were sidelined and their lands robbed, the Sioux left us such legendary figures as Sitting Bull, who defeated the great General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse. This is a tale from their beliefs.
The Three Tests
In the hopes of gaining for his wife a very beautiful but demanding woman who lived in a village far away, and who set many tests for her suitors, a young man travelling towards the village was astounded at the sight of a man atop a high hill, sitting down and standing up at intervals. As he drew closer, he could see the man was affixing stones to his ankles, and when he had come close enough to speak to the man the youth asked him why. The man replied that he wished to chase buffaloes, but he was too fast for them and kept overshooting, so he was tying stones to his feet to slow himself down. Asking him to accompany him on his quest to win the lady, the youth took the man with him, and they travelled on until they met another man.
This one sat by a lake, dipping his head in, and when the two of them asked him the meaning he explained that he was always thirsty, no matter how much he drank. “When I have finished this lake,” he declared, “I shall start on another.” Convincing him to join the two, the three now journeyed on until they met a fourth man, one who kept looking up at the sky. He told them he had shot an arrow up into the air, and was waiting for it to come back down. Having joined the party, he and the other three picked up a fifth when they came across a man listening to, he said, the sound of the plants breathing in the earth, with his head lowered flat to the ground.
The now party of five (sorry) arrived at the village where the youth declared his intention to woo the maiden. The villagers explained to him how the girl set her potential suitors difficult tasks, and when he had agreed to undertake what was asked of him, led him to where a huge boulder overshadowed the village. He was told to move it, but bewailed his task as impossible. His friend of swift foot though, the first man he had met, shook his head and told him nothing was simpler. Putting his shoulder to the rock he easily moved it, it went over the edge and shattered, sending small pieces everywhere, which became the rocks and stones that cover the earth.
Having completed the first test, the youth was presented with a huge kettle of water to drink, and again despaired, for it would take an army to empty it. But his other friend, the lake drinker, disposed of it easily. The third test was one of speed, and for this he was to choose a champion to race against the fastest woman in the village. Naturally he chose again his first companion, he of the swift foot, and they set off. Evenly matched, they reached the halfway point when the woman declared she was hot and tired, and suggested they rest before making the return trip. The swift-footed man agreed, and soon fell asleep from his exertions. Seeing her chance, the woman got up and ran off while he slept, heading back for the finish line.
When the woman came in sight, alone, great was the anguish of the young man and his companions that there was no sign of their champion, but the earth-listener put his ear to the ground and said he could hear him sleeping. The archer then nocked an arrow to his bow, let fly and pinched the sleeping man on the nose with the arrow, waking him up. He jumped up, realised he had been tricked, and ran as fast as he could, overtaking the woman just as she reached the end point.
With all tests now completed, and thanks to his friends, the young man was wed to the maiden of the village.
Trollheart's note: I don't get what this story is supposed to teach the reader. The youth accomplished none of the tasks on his own; his friends had to do so. Why then did the woman accept him, when he couldn't carry out her tasks? Why did she not go with one of the others, Swift Foot or Earth Listener maybe? Was it enough for the youth to have proven he was wise or clever enough to choose friends that could help him? Maybe. Maybe the moral is that you need help with the toughest tasks, and that a man should always be able to call on friends?
And finally, as promised, or threatened, something from my own country.
CELTIC CORNER
Lugh and the death of Balor
Lugh was the sun king of Irish myth, leader of the Tuatha de Dannan, the gods of Ireland. Balor was leader of the Fomorians, a race of evil giant beings from beyond the sea, the eternal enemies of the Dannan. One day Balor heard a prophecy that he would be killed by his own grandson, so he imprisoned his daughter, Eithlinn, in a tall tower on Tory Island, to prevent her coming in contact with any man. Only a baby at this time, Eithlinn grew into a real beauty, but under the instructions of Balor her twelve ladies in waiting ensured she never met a man, nor even knew there was such a thing as a man.
On the mainland three brothers, Cian, Sawan and Goban lived, and Cian was known to possess a most wonderful and magical cow, whose milk was one of the most highly prized commodities in Ireland. Balor, hearing of the cow, plotted to steal her and so Cian sought the advice of the fairy woman Biróg, who told him who had stolen his cow and where to find him. Transported to Tory Island by the woman’s magic, Cian gained access to the tower wherein Eithlinn was imprisoned and in due course she gave birth to three sons. Balor, terrified that the prophecy was about to be fulfilled after all his precautions, commanded his henchman to gather up all three infants in a sheet and throw them into the sea. One, however, slipped from the sheet and instead fell into a bay, where, under the protection of Biróg it was transported back to Cian, who sent the child to foster with his friend, the blacksmith Goban.
Lugh grew to be a powerful warrior, skilled at every craft, and served the king Nuada of the Silver Hand, until he ended up fighting alongside him in a desperate battle against the Formorians. When all seemed lost, and even Nuada had been laid low by the evil power of the third eye in Balor’s forehead that struck men down, Lugh seized the chance as the eyelid lowered for a moment from weariness to cast a large stone into it, destroying Balor's eye and killing him outright. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled, and Balor was killed by a grandson he had believed had been slain at birth but who rose to put an end to his tyranny.