feeling of security after performing magical ceremonies, and were
happy enough when they gathered round flickering lights to listen to
ancient song and story and gossip about crops and traders, the members
of the royal house, and the family affairs of their acquaintances.

The Babylonian spirit world, it will be seen, was of complex
character. Its inhabitants were numberless, but often vaguely defined,
and one class of demons linked with another. Like the European fairies
of folk belief, the Babylonian spirits were extremely hostile and
irresistible at certain seasonal periods; and they were fickle and
perverse and difficult to please even when inclined to be friendly.
They were also similarly manifested from time to time in various
forms. Sometimes they were comely and beautiful; at other times they
were apparitions of horror. The Jinn of present-day Arabians are of
like character; these may be giants, cloudy shapes, comely women,
serpents or cats, goats or pigs.

Some of the composite monsters of Babylonia may suggest the vague and
exaggerated recollections of terror-stricken people who have had
glimpses of unfamiliar wild beasts in the dusk or amidst reedy
marshes. But they cannot be wholly accounted for in this way. While
animals were often identified with supernatural beings, and foreigners
were called "devils", it would be misleading to assert that the spirit
world reflects confused folk memories of human and bestial enemies.
Even when a demon was given concrete human form it remained
essentially non-human: no ordinary weapon could inflict an injury, and
it was never controlled by natural laws. The spirits of disease and
tempest and darkness were creations of fancy: they symbolized moods;
they were the causes which explained effects. A sculptor or
storyteller who desired to convey an impression of a spirit of storm
or pestilence created monstrous forms to inspire terror. Sudden and
unexpected visits of fierce and devastating demons were accounted for
by asserting that they had wings like eagles, were nimble-footed as
gazelles, cunning and watchful as serpents; that they had claws to
clutch, horns to gore, and powerful fore legs like a lion to smite
down victims. Withal they drank blood like ravens and devoured corpses
like hyaenas. Monsters were all the more repulsive when they were
partly human. The human-headed snake or the snake-headed man and the
man with the horns of a wild bull and the legs of a goat were