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Hankering For A Little More

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Gilgamesh soon found where Arad Ea dwelt, and after a time prevailed upon him to act as ferryman. Arad Ea required a helm for his boat, and Gilgamesh hastened to fashion one from a tree. When it was fixed on, the boat was launched and the voyage began. Terrible experiences were passed through as they crossed the Sea of Death, but at length they drew nigh to the "Island of the Blessed" on which dwelt Pir-napishtim and his wife. Wearied by his exertions and wasted by disease, Gilgamesh sat resting in the boat. He did not go ashore.

The journey of Gilgamesh to the Island of the Blessed recalls the journeys made by Odin, Hermod, Svipdag, Hotherus and others to the Germanic Hela. When Hermod went to search for Balder, as the Prose Edda relates, he rode through thick darkness for nine days and nine nights ere he crossed the mountains. As Gilgamesh met Sabitu, Hermod met Modgudur, "the maiden who kept the bridge" over the river Gjoll. Svipdag, according to a Norse poem, was guided like the Babylonian hero by the moon god, Gevar, who instructed him what way he should take to find the irresistible sword. Saxo's Hother, who is instructed by "King Gewar", crosses dismal mountains "beset with extraordinary cold".[217] Thorkill crosses a stormy ocean to the region of perpetual darkness, where the ghosts of the dead are confined in loathsome and dusty caves. At the main entrance "the door posts were begrimed with the soot of ages".[218] In the _Elder Edda_ Svipdag is charmed against the perils he will be confronted by as he fares "o'er seas mightier than men do know", or is overtaken by night "wandering on the misty way ".[219] When Odin "downward rode into Misty Hel" he sang spells at a "witch's grave", and the ghost rose up to answer his questions regarding Balder. "Tell me tidings of Hel", he addressed her, as Gilgamesh addressed the ghost of Ea-bani.

The drift of Babylonian culture was not only directed westward towards the coast of Palestine, and from thence to Greece during the Phoenician period, but also eastward through Elam to the Iranian plateau and India. Reference has already been made to the resemblances between early Vedic and Sumerian mythologies. When the "new songs" of the Aryan invaders of India were being composed, the sky and ocean god, Varuna, who resembles Ea-Oannes, and Mitra, who links with Shamash, were already declining in splendour. Other cultural influences were at work. Certain of the Aryan tribes, for instance, buried their dead in Varuna's "house of clay", while a growing proportion cremated their dead and worshipped Agni, the fire god. At the close of the Vedic period there were fresh invasions into middle India, and the "late comers" introduced new beliefs, including the doctrines of the Transmigration of Souls and of the Ages of the Universe. Goddesses also rose into prominence, and the Vedic gods became minor deities, and subject to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. These "late comers" had undoubtedly been influenced by Babylonian ideas before they entered India. In their Doctrine of the World's Ages or Yugas, for instance, we are forcibly reminded of the Euphratean ideas regarding space and time. Mr. Robert Brown, junr., who is an authority in this connection, shows that the system by which the "Day of Brahma" was calculated in India resembles closely an astronomical system which obtained in Babylonia, where apparently the theory of cosmic periods had origin.

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