e excavation of Nineveh in 1872, a Babylonian version of
the story, which forms part of the Gilgamesh epic, was discovered
in the library of King Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.); and there are
records of a much earlier version, belonging to the year 1966
B.C. The story of the Flood, as related on the eleventh tablet of
the Gilgamesh epic, abounds in supernatural terror. To seek the
gift of immortality from his ancestor, Ut-napishtim, the hero
undertakes a weary and perilous journey. 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. Figures like the Demon Lover, who
bears off his mistress in the fatal craft and sinks her in the
sea, and the cannibal bridegroom, outwitted at last by the
artfulness of one of his brides, appear in the folk-lore of many
lands. Through every century there glide uneasy spirits, groaning
for vengeance. Andrew Lang[2] mentions the existence of a papyrus
fragment, found attached to a wooden statuette, in which an
ancient Egyptian scribe addresses a letter to the Khou, or
spirit, of his dead wife, beseeching her not to haunt him. One of
the ancestors of the savage were-wolf, who figures in Marryat's
_Phantom Ship_, may per