He passes the mountain
guarded by a scorpion man and woman, where the sun goes down; he
traverses a dark and dreadful road, where never man trod, and at
last crosses the waters of death. During the deluge, which is
predicted by his ancestor, the gods themselves are stricken with
fear:
"No man beheld his fellow, no more could men know each
other. In heaven the gods were afraid ... They drew
back, they climbed up into the heaven of Anu. The gods
crouched like dogs, they cowered by the walls."[1]
Another episode in the same epic, when Nergal, the god of the
dead, brings before Gilgamesh an apparition of his friend,
Eabani, recalls the impressive scene, when the witch of Endor
summons the spirit of Samuel before Saul.
When legends began to grow up round the names of traditional
heroes, fierce encounters with giants and monsters were invented
to glorify their strength and prowess. David, with a stone from
his sling, slew Goliath. The crafty Ulysses put out the eye of
Polyphemus. Grettir, according to the Icelandic saga, overcame
Glam, the malevolent, death-dealing vampire who "went riding the
roofs." Beowulf fearlessly descended into the turbid mere to
grapple with Grendel's mother. Folktales and ballads, in which
incidents similar to those in myths and heroic legends occur, are
often overshadowed by terror.
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