a dragon, it was because it was supposed to be inhabited
by a storm-causing dragon; the wind whispered because a spirit
whispered in it. Love lyrics were charms to compel the love god to
wound or possess a maiden's heart--to fill it, as an Indian charm sets
forth, with "the yearning of the Apsaras (fairies)"; satires conjured
up evil spirits to injure a victim; and heroic narratives chanted at
graves were statements made to the god of battle, so that he might
award the mighty dead by transporting him to the Valhal of Odin or
Swarga of Indra.

Similarly, music had magical origin as an imitation of the voices of
spirits--of the piping birds who were "Fates", of the wind high and
low, of the thunder roll, of the bellowing sea. So the god Pan piped
on his reed bird-like notes, Indra blew his thunder horn, Thor used
his hammer like a drumstick, Neptune imitated on his "wreathed horn"
the voice of the deep, the Celtic oak god Dagda twanged his windy
wooden harp, and Angus, the Celtic god of spring and love, came
through budding forest ways with a silvern harp which had strings of
gold, echoing the tuneful birds, the purling streams, the whispering
winds, and the rustling of scented fir and blossoming thorn.

Modern-day poets and singers, who voice their moods and cast the spell
of their moods over readers and audiences, are the representatives of
ancient magicians who believed that moods were caused by the spirits
which possessed them--the rhythmical wind spirits, those harpers of
the forest and songsters of ocean.

The following quotations from Mr. R.C. Thompson's translations of
Babylonian charms will serve to illustrate their poetic qualities:--

Fever like frost hath come upon the land.

Fever hath blown upon the man as the wind blast,
It hath smitten the man and humbled his pride.

Headache lieth like the stars of heaven in the desert and hath no
praise;
Pain in the head and shivering like a scudding cloud turn unto the
form of man.

Headache whose course like the dread windstorm none knoweth.

Headache roareth over the desert, blowing like the wind,
Flashing like lightning, it is loosed above and below,
It cutteth off him, who feareth not his god, like a reed ...
From amid mountains it hath descended upon the land.

Headache ... a rushing hag-demon,
Granting no rest, nor giving kindly sleep ...
W