tal on the river Thames (? _tehom_), was only a
stellar myth, arising from the nearness of Orion to the Sea-monster in
the sky--a variant, in fact, of the great Babylonian myth of Marduk and
Tiamat, the dragon of the deep.

It seems necessary to make this remark, since the process of
astrologizing history, whether derived from the Bible or from secular
writers, has been carried very far. Thus Dr. H. Winckler writes down the
account of the first three Persian kings, given us by Herodotus, as
myths of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini; David and Goliath, too, are but
Marduk and Tiamat, or Orion and Cetus, but David has become the Giant,
and Goliath the Dragon, for "Goliath" is claimed as a word-play on the
Babylonian _galittu_, "ocean." Examining an Arabic globe of date 1279
A.D.--that is to say some 4,000 years after the constellations were
devised,--Dr. Winckler found that Orion was represented as left-handed.
He therefore used this left-handed Orion as the link of identification
between Ehud, the left-handed judge of Israel, and Tyr, the left-handed
Mars of the Scandinavian pantheon. Dr. Winckler seems to have been
unaware of the elementary fact that a celestial globe necessarily shows
its figures "inside out." We look up to the sky, to see the actual
constellations from within the sphere; we look down upon a celestial
globe from without, and hence see the designs upon it as in the
looking-glass.

[238:1] Dr. Cheyne says, in a note on p. 52 of _Job and Solomon_, "Heb.
_K's[=i]l_, the name of the foolhardy giant who strove with Jehovah. The
Chaldeo-Assyrian astrology gave the name _Kisiluv_ to the ninth month,
connecting it with the zodiacal sign Sagittarius. But there are valid
reasons for attaching the Hebrew popular myth to Orion." So Col. Conder,
in p. 179 of _The Hittites and their Language_, translates the name of
the Assyrian ninth month, _Cisleu_, as "giant." Now Sagittarius is in
the heavens just opposite to Orion, so when in the ninth month the sun
was in conjunction with Sagittarius, Orion was in opposition. In
_Cisleu_, therefore, the giant, Orion, was riding the heavens all night,
occupying the chamber of the south at midnight, so that the ninth month
might well be called the month of the giant.

[241:1] Dr. L. W. King, _Tablets of Creation_, appendix iii. p. 208.

CHAPTER VIII

MAZZAROTH

We have no assistance from any cuneiform inscriptions as to the
astronomical significance of _`Ayish_, _K[=i]mah