horrible
in the extreme. Evil spirits might sometimes achieve success by
practising deception. They might appear as beautiful girls or handsome
men and seize unsuspecting victims in deathly embrace or leave them
demented and full of grief, or come as birds and suddenly assume
awesome shapes.

Fairies and elves, and other half-human demons, are sometimes regarded
as degenerate gods. It will be seen, however, that while certain
spirits developed into deities, others remained something between
these two classes of supernatural beings: they might attend upon gods
and goddesses, or operate independently now against mankind and now
against deities even. The "namtaru", for instance, was a spirit of
fate, the son of Bel-Enlil and Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades.
"Apparently", writes Professor Pinches, "he executed the instructions
given him concerning the fate of men, and could also have power over
certain of the gods."[103] To this middle class belong the evil gods
who rebelled against the beneficent deities. According to Hebridean
folk belief, the fallen angels are divided into three classes--the
fairies, the "nimble men" (aurora borealis), and the "blue men of the
Minch". In _Beowulf_ the "brood of Cain" includes "monsters and elves
and sea-devils--giants also, who long time fought with God, for which
he gave them their reward".[104] Similarly the Babylonian spirit
groups are liable to division and subdivision. The various classes may
be regarded as relics of the various stages of development from crude
animism to sublime monotheism: in the fragmentary legends we trace the
floating material from which great mythologies have been framed.

CHAPTER V.

MYTHS OF TAMMUZ AND ISHTAR

Forms of Tammuz--The Weeping Ceremony--Tammuz the Patriarch and the
Dying God--Common Origin of Tammuz and other Deities from an Archaic
God--The Mediterranean Racial Myth--Animal Forms of Gods of
Fertility--Two Legends of the Death of Tammuz--Attis, Adonis, and
Diarmid Slain by a Boar--Laments for Tammuz--His Soul in Underworld
and the Deep--Myth of the Child God of Ocean--Sargon Myth
Version--The Germanic Scyld of the Sheaf--Tammuz Links with Frey,
Heimdal, Agni, &c.--Assyrian Legend of "Descent of Ishtar"--Sumerian
Version--The Sister Belit-sheri and the Mother Ishtar--The Egyptian
Isis and Nepthys--Goddesses as Mothers, Sisters, and Wives--Great
Mothers of Babylonia--Immortal Goddesses and Dying Gods--The Various