Literary Magic (Black Magic?/Spell of Nudimmud)

[us4-he2-gal2]

(What Im Terming)
Literary Magic

Something I find puzzling is the extent to which instances of magic within the literary context, or as part of myth, can be understood as conforming to magic practice as such was actually applied by the Sumerian magic practitioner. By literary magic I'm referring occasions in which an explicit magical act is described in any detail within the myths and epics -which wouldnt appear to be that often- as opposed magical acts detailed in texts dealing specifically with incantation and ritual.

Black Magic? in Enmerker and En-suhgir-ana

Etcsl t.1.8.2.4

Niek Velhuis [1] relays that "Incantations are not meant to entertain, to display verbal virtuosity, or to construct imagined worlds. They are meant to be used in magic rituals, in order to influence the course of events. " So while other literary forms which be composed in the interests of state, religion or entertainment, the extent incantations by and large are Exorcistic in nature, associated with an officially sanctioned class of magic practitioner. This magic then was understood as possessing efficacy, and focused mainly on the restraint, placation and removal of Agents of Illness, Sickness Demons and other anti-social forces - it could be termed 'white magic.' therefore. Evidence for the practice of 'black magic' is thin, especially in early periods, quite possibly due to the 'folk' nature of such practice and such could not have been officially sanctioned..correspondingly, it's practice was not documented as exorcistic magic was.

Black magic is attested in the practices of the witch, see for example Abusch. Leick [2] understands Love magic (attested already in the Sargonic period) in these words "It is not directly apotopaic or therapeutic, in the sense of cleansing the afflicted from a demonic influence. Its purpose is, on the contrary, more like that of 'black magic', to gain power over another person, to force him, or her, to do what one desired." Even still the love incantations extent are examples found within the official corpus of incantations, the instances of the witch only found within late anti-witchcraft literature (that of the exorcist).

The Black Magic practitioner is one whose use of magic is anti-social or malevolent, and some other hint about his character may be seen in the epic tale Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, which belongs to a literary group sometimes termed "the matter of Aratta", the others in this group are 'Enmerker and the lord of Aratta', and the two Lugalbanda stories. These Four poems share the "same topic (the manifestation of superiority of Unug over Aratta); the same period of imagined time (the high-water mark of Sumerian civilization as they saw it, expressed in the construction and adornment of the great city of Unug); the same space (Unug, Aratta, and the wilderness between them); the same protagonists (Enmerker, Lugalbanda, and the Lord of Aratta- and, in a peculiar way, the same goddess Inana); and, finally, roughly the same type of plot: Aratta is subdued by nonmilitary means." (As H. Vanstiphout explains in his book "Epics of the Sumerian Kings: The matter of Aratta [2003] [3])

Within this tale, Enmerker and En-suhgir-ana, a sorcerer [mašmaš] is commissioned by Aratta and sent against Unug to force a submission. This sorcerer is Ur-ĝiri-nuna by name and the text states he is "a man of Ḫamazu [ha-ma-zu-ke4] who "came over to Aratta after Ḫamazu was destroyed." Ḫamazu is a question mark to me for the most part, the above mentioned author states "Hamazi/u is a city lying to the northeast of Babylonia, east of Kirkuk." (pg.47). Now in any case he practices sorcery "in the inner chamber of the e-ĝipar."

Perhaps in order to prevent Nisaba from issuing levies and thus to interfere with the administrative functioning of Ereš (and by extension Uruk?), the sorcerer goes to a cow in the animal pen of Ereš, the cow who provides goods for Nisaba's dining table, speaks to it, and issues the magic words: "Cow, your butter to your shining horn; your milk to your back." Which would seem to be an elaborate sabotage, as Vanstiphout explains "Nisaba as a goddess of writing is also and by that token the goddess of administration and bureaucracy. When she starves, civilization will starve. This is a stark expression of their realization of the fact that writing ultimately must serve the administration of civilized life."
Ur-ĝiri-nuna's magic results in the cows and goats withholding their milk, in a disruption of administration, which the above author describes as a "bewitching of Sumer" and "...this is truly black magic", an act which drained the life force of the land. In the tale this results in a plea to the Sun god for help, and a wise women is sent for by the name of Sagburu. Sagburu then engages the sorcerer in a type of formulaic magical combat part of which reads:

(etcsl)
"228-231. Both of them threw fish spawn (?) into the river. The sorcerer made a giant carp {come out} {(1 ms. has instead:) arise} from the water. Wise Woman Saĝburu, however, made an eagle {come out} {(1 ms. has instead:) arise} from the water. {The eagle seized the giant carp and fled to the mountains}"

This same sequence is repeated four more times, each time the combatants bring an animal forth from the river, and each time Sagburu's animal devours that brought forth by the Sorcerer. I had found this sequence perplexing, as it stands alone in what Ive seen in Mesopotamian Magic as far as 'technique' might go (certainly being absurd in the face of the exorcistic incantations) and at the same time the essential meaning was quite obscure to me. However Vanstiphout, who sees Sagburu as performing white magic and the sorcerer the vice versa, provides interesting perspective- as the black magic or the Arattian sorcerer drained the life force of Sumer: "the contest is also on topic: the animals created by Sagburu take all the sorcerer's animals as their food. It may not be immediately obvious, but this is the countermeasure to the black magic, and the text is explicit that the sorcerer's sin was the taking away of Sumer's life force. This life force is to be restored by the immolation of the sorcerer himself." I.E. When Sagburu threw him into the Euphrates and "seized from him his life-force and then returned to her city, Ereš."

Interesting, but likely too removed from any context to have much value in defining black magic of the domestic and folk sort - Ur-ĝiri-nuna after all is termed a "mašmaš" and practice's in the e-gipar seemingly at the behest of the Lord of Aratta, making him if anything an officially sanctioned practitioner. There seems to be some dispute as to whether the UrIII incantation TEXT 51 [Ni 2177] refers to the military conquest of foreign lands or no, if it does this would seem to be relevant in considering the sorcerer actions.

Enmerker and the Lord of Aratta: The Spell of Nudimmud

Etcsl t.1.8.2.3

The other epic tale related to the above, again features a rivalry between Aratta and Unug, and a demand for submission. In his first challenge to Aratta, Enmerker instructs his messenger to relay a number of demands and in addition to recite before the Lord of Aratta the "Spell of Nudimmud." This is somewhat paradoxical and obscure and readings are in dispute evidently, Vanstiphout's interpretation is very interesting though as he renders this spell in the future tense (as oppose to the past tense as elsewhere). It reads this way as:

"It is the spell of Nudimmud!
"One day there will be no snake, no scorpion,
"There will be no hyena, nor lion,
there will be neither (wild) dog nor wolf.
"And thus there will be neither fear nor trembling,
"For man will then have no enemy.
"On that day the lands of $uber and Hamazi,
"As well as twin-tongued Sumer-great mound of the power of lord-ship-
"Together with Akkad-the mound that has all that is befitting-
"And even the land Martu, resting in the green pastures,
"Yea, the whole world of well-ruled people,
"Will be able to speak to Enlil in one language!
"For on that day, for the debates between lords and princes and
kings
"Shall Enki, for the debates between lords and princes and kings,
"For the debates betweens lords and princes and kings,
"Shall Enki, Lord of abundance, Lord of steadfast decisions,
"Lord of wisdom and knowledge in the Land,
"Expert of the gods,
"Chosen for wisdom, Lord of Eridug,
"Change the tongues in their mouth, as many as he once placed there
"And speech of mankind shall be truly one!'"


Hence, now the Spell of Nudimmud is an incantation sent from Unug to Aratta, and in the future (if not by virtue of the magic of the incantation itself) tongue's will become one, presumably given the source of the magic, Sumerian. In his explanation of the "Intention and Message" of these epics, the Vanstiphout says they have an explicit aim to praise the glorious past of Sumer, while at the same time, they "unmistakably have in mind the glory of the Ur III state" (the period in which they were composed and written down.) The composers of Enmerker and the Lord of Aratta refer to the superiority of Sumer over Aratta in a number of ways, most prominently that the formers technological advancements, and superiority in trade give them claim to the latter's raw materials (precious stones/metals) - "but there is more: by the globalization of the use of their language (The Spell of Nudimmud!) and by the invention of writing they also control this international trade." This explanation also fits well with the fact Enmerker's final challenge to the Lord of Aratta carried with it an explanation of how writing was invented, for that very message even, which Vanstiphout see's as a "parallel of sorts" to the first challenge - as knowing 'Sumerian was equivalent to knowing how to write' or at least 'compliments the notion of Sumerian as the international language."
The Spell of Nudimmud would seem to be a literary device used largely for propagandistic purpose's then, and its possible there would be little actual correlation between the concerns of the composer and those of the incantation specialist.

Still to come - other cases of "literary magic".

P.S. Any experts out there taking issue with my terminology etc etc. in this post? I would love a chance to refine my grasp anytime. I understand criticism is something that makes me stronger too.

cheers.



[1] in Mesopotamian Magic: Its Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives, Poetry in Magic (Niek Veldhuis) pg.36. That Holy Grail of all books I need to buy but which cost a fortune and take a long time to get.
[2] From Gwendolyn Leick's book 'Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature'
[3] This book Ive skimmed at the library, is a very focused discussion of the Enmerker and Lugalbanda stories, and provides keys and plot outlines together with great insights into what sometimes seem to be bewildering narratives. Very enjoyable read even if just for a few hours -"Epics of the Sumerian Kings: The matter of Aratta" 175 pgs, isbn 1589830830

[us4-he2-gal2]

The Myth of Anzu

:



In the past the instance of magic in the exchange between Anzu and Ninurta seemed to remain somewhat undefined - the power involved ostensibly came from the tablet of destinies usually held by Enlil. When Enlil speaks and decree's destiny an undeniable authority and efficacy results, and conventionally, incantations as present in the early Exorcist's corpus recieve their efficacy through divine legitimation of some sort - but the extent to which the Anzu's words here are magic is not easy to establish. Foster (1995 ) understands that "Since Anzu has the tablet of destinies, he has efficacious incantations against any attack, so Ninurta's onslaught is stopped."

The words Anzu use's to counter the attack are:

"Shaft which has come, go back to your thicket,
"Frame of the bow to your forests,
"Bowstring to the sheeps sinews,
feather to the birds: go back!"

Ea subsequently gives instructions to Ninurta on how to defeat the Anzu, after the removal of some of its feathers, and once Anzu experience's this lose, Ea states "they willl take away his (magic) words."


According to the Binsbergen/Wiggermann Theoretical model:

Within the section "Me/partsu and the Holistic World View" The authors explain this instance of literay magic as the use of Namtar (here the governing force of Enlil) by Anzu, to disrupt and circumvent the regular order and operation or as they term it:

"N a m t a r / shimtu here is the power to operate the universe of inanimate things and make them change their normal ways, their m e / partsu, or, in other words, to perform magic. The loss of the tablet of destinies did not affect the gods’ ability to act, only their mastery over nature, and another text explains that the possession of the Tablet of Fates involved the ‘secret of Heaven and Earth’"

Its interesting to attempt to contrast this with the above magic commands issued by the En-suhgir-ana, the sorcerer, who utters the magic command ""Cow, your butter to your shining horn; your milk to your back."

[us4-he2-gal2]

In the June 15th enenuru update I wrote:



_____________________________________________





a) I'm writing to pass along a few pretty awesome links which contain some free Assyriological pdfs - but first I would like to issue a board-wide challenge. The story of Enmerkar and En-suḫgir-ana has fascinated me for some time as it provides one of very rare cases of black magic to be seen in the Mesopotamian literature. The story, in which a sorcerer is hired by the Lord of Aratta to subdue the land of Sumer by magical means, takes on some very interesting plot twists as the hostile sorcerer is confronted by a wise women and a magical battle ensues. At the following thread, there is some treatment of the issue:


[***edit : this thread ]



This confrontation is highly entertaining and yet seems to me to be entirely unrepresentative of Sumerian magic as a whole - I've failed to note anything of this sort in the corpus of actual Sumerian incantations etc. I therefore call the episode 'literary magic' implying that beyond their basic view of magic as real and effective, the Sumerian poets were also capable of fictionalizing magic for the purposes of entertainment. Or so it seems. So the challenge is this: can anyone suggest parallels in later literature (of any time or place) of the contest between En-suḫgir-ana and the wise women? Preferable not just a battle between magicians, but between conjurers - as the real fight begins when fish spawn is thrown into the river and each contestant pulls out an animal - the one fights the other and the contest is repeated a number of times. Adele Berlin, who worked on the text, calls this a "transformation combat" and wrote about the wise women "in our text um-ma sag-bur-ru is the witch or sorceress so pervasive in fairy tales. They are universally pictured as old hags." I will copy these paragraphs on the thread given above if anyone wants to make responses there.

[sheshki]

Interesting topic Bill, you have my attention with this one, (not my area though) so I shall ponder it somewhat.

One query though, must we use the terms "black" and "white" in relation to Mesopotamian concepts of otherworldly phenomena and practice? I also am wary of the term magic as the cult/ritual value of the medium is not a uniquelly separate entity in antquity, as it is in contemporary culture where monotheism has created clear (and ostensibly negative) demarcation lines.

I agree that this type of mythologising appears to be a literary device, possibly descended from oral traditions. But a time frame for these documents would be convenient, although the second text mentions Martu, so I am in a Mid-Late Bronze Age area with that one. Whether these "marchen" are late or early effects whether they would be literary constructs alone, I don't think they are.

Have you noticed the similarity in style to later transformation myths from other cultures? The Song of Taliesin from Welsh (Celt) mythology springs immediately to mind. Alarmingly similar plot, of magician (Taliesin) versus "witch" (actually the underworld goddess Cerridwen), with animal transformations etc.
But Classical myth also possesses an array, Ovid put somewhat of an effort into them with the Metamorphosis, possibly also The Golden Ass by Apuleius, but I am employing memory with that one.
I may have a look at some anthropological theory regarding same, as coincidentally I was reading an article yesterday by John Baines (1991, "Egyptian Myth and Discourse: Myth, Gods and the Early Written and Iconographic Record," JNES) on the context of marchen in constructing literary forms in ancient Egypt (he used German theory on the role of folktales as a term of comparison). Egyptian literature equally possesses combats between magicians involving transformations.
Also, I find the subject interesting.

Cheers Andrea,

(yes I know it says Sheshki but this damn comp is logging me in automatically as the Dubsar and I aint muckin aboot with his settings). With any luck he will be so scandalised that we will be able to fix this error later and yet not lose this post.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello Frank/Andrea (or "Frandrea" if you will):





First of all, I understand your hesitation to employ the terms "magic" and especially "black" and "white" magic; even when still approaching this study I felt these terms may be potentially misleading however I found that the big names in the field have resorted to such terms for the sake of discussion and so I follow suit.



As for the dating of the story in question, Vanstiphout in his "Epics of Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta" said this: "There is little doubt that the cycle originated in the Ur III period
(2112–2004 B.C.E.), but the actual form of the texts and the tablets themselves date almost exclusively5 from the Isin-Larsa period (2017–1763 B.C.E.) and are products of the scribal schools, predominantly those of Nippur and Ur."

Enmerkar and En-suḫgir-ana is one of several texts grouped by that author into a series having to do with the legendary Urukian kings; the stories were likely commissioned by the kings of the Ur III period who saw the kings of Uruk as setting the stage for Sumerian cultural dominance. Interestingly, these stories tell of a competition between two states, Uruk and Aratta; in each the main sort of action seems to be in the form of a contest between states and in Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana the matter is settled by contesting champions (in this case champions of magic).


Adele Berlin's 1979 book entitled "Enmerkar and Ensuhkeshdanna" (another reading of En-suhgir-ana) was a ground breaking study of the text; the author notes that the Sumerian scribes labeled and categorized this text as a "adaman-du11-ga" text - that is, a debate type text. However, given that other examples of this genre, i.e. the debate between summer and winter, lack anything like the narrative structure found in the text under discussion and so the author find the label misleading. She suspects, given the political implications of the text, that "the compositions were intended to be recited at court or at state celebrations."




__________________



As for the subject of comparative study: I am far from an able folkloreist - and any gains made so far are pretty modest. I'm very impressed with your citing of the Welsh Song of Taliesin as an example! That seems pretty obscure. From an entry at encyclopedia.com I read that Taliesin was:


"Highly folkloric but with traces of pre-Christian religious belief, the Hanes Taliesin was compiled by Llywelyn Siôn (1540—c. 1615) and given wide readership by Lady Charlotte Guest in her translation of The Mabinogion (1838–49). In the days of Maelgwn Gwynedd (6th cent.), the shape-shifting goddess Ceridwen lives at the bottom of Bala Lake with her husband Tegid Foel, after whom the lake [W Llyn Tegid] is named. She brews a magic cauldron named Amen whose contents she intends for her own ugly son Morfran [sea crow, also known as Afagddu, utter darkness], so that he may be gifted with poetic talent. Her wishes are thwarted when her servant, Gwion Bach, catches three drops from the cauldron on his thumb and forefingers, which he thrusts into his mouth, giving himself the poetic gift. Enraged, Ceridwen sets after Gwion Bach, after which each of them undergoes a series of metamorphoses: he becomes a hare, and she a greyhound; he a salmon, and she an otter; he a bird, and she a hawk; he a grain of wheat, and she a hen who swallows him. Magically, this grain of wheat impregnates Ceridwen; what had been Gwion Bach is reborn from her womb as a creature of such great beauty that she cannot kill him and so casts him adrift on the sea."



Looking up Lady Charlotte Guest's book at archive.org, I see the transformation sequence went like this:


"And she went forth after him, running. And he saw
her, and changed himself into a hare and fled. But she
changed herself into a greyhound and turned him. And
he ran towards a river, and became a fish. And she in
the form of an otter-bitch chased him under the water,
until he was fain to turn himself into a bird of the air.
She, as a hawk, followed him and gave him no rest in
the sky. And just as she was about to stoop upon him,
and he was in fear of death, he espied a heap of winnowed
wheat on the floor of a barn, and he dropped among the
wheat, and turned himself into one of the grains. Then
she transformed herself into a high-crested black hen,
and went to the wheat and scratched it with her feet,
and found him out and swallowed him. And, as the
story says, she bore him nine months, and when she was
delivered of him, she could not find it in her heart to
kill him, by reason of his beauty. So she wrapped him
in a leathern bag, and cast him into the sea to the mercy
of God, on the twenty- ninth day of April. "



So far, I have yet to see an instance whereby the sorcerer and witch summon animals that compete - this transformation battle, whereby the actual magic users are transformed, may be a separate, albeit much more common form of folklore. Here is the Wikipedia entry for "Transformation chase" under the general entry "Shapeshifting":



In many fairy tales and ballads, as in Child Ballad #44, The Two Magicians or Farmer Weathersky, a magical chase occurs where the pursued endlessly takes on forms in an effort to shake off the pursuer, and the pursuer answers with other shape-shifting, as, a dove is answered with a hawk, and a hare with a greyhound. The pursued may finally succeed in escape or the pursuer in capturing. This appears in legends around the world. One is "The Story of Calicoin", the story of a powerful witch called Ceridwen who wished to make her son Avagddu a powerful potion that would make him a wizard. She ordered her servant-boy Gwion to brew it for a year and one day, but on the last day he accidentally spilled three drops on his finger. When he put his finger in his mouth to cool it, he swallowed these drops and instantly became a wizard. Ceridwen found out and began to chase Gwion. Gwion first changed into a hare, and Ceridwen changed into a greyhound. The boy became a fish, and the woman an otter. He turned into a dove, she turned into a hawk. Finally Gwion transformed into a tiny grain of wheat, hiding with many other grains on a barn floor. Ceridwen transformed into a black hen and pecked up all the grains, including Gwion.
In Dapplegrim, this was set as a challenge; if the youth found the transformed princess twice, and hid from her twice, they would marry. The Grimm Brothers fairy tales Foundling-Bird contains this as the bulk of the plot.[13] In Greek mythology, Zeus frequently transformed himself and his love to escape Hera's wrath, or that of the women's fathers, but generally in a simplified form, with only one transformation.[14]
In the Italian Campania Fables collection of Pentamerone by Gianbattista Basile , tells of a Neapolitan princess to escape from his father, who had imprisoned, she becomes in a huge she-bear. The magic happens due to a potion given to him by an old witch. The girl, once gone, can get his human aspect.
In other variants, the pursued may transform various objects into obstacles, as in the fairy tale "The Master Maid", where the Master Maid transforms a wooden comb into a forest, a lump of salt into a mountain, and a flask of water into a sea. In these tales, the pursued normally escapes after overcoming three obstacles.[15] This obstacle chase is literally found worldwide, in many variants in every region.[16]
In fairy tales of the Aarne-Thompson type 313A, the girl helps the hero flee, one such chase is an integral part of the tale. It can be either a transformation chase (as in The Grateful Prince, King Kojata, Foundling-Bird, Jean, the Soldier, and Eulalie, the Devil's Daughter, or The Two Kings' Children) or an obstacle chase (as in The Battle of the Birds, The White Dove, or The Master Maid).[17]
In a similar effect, a captive may shape-shift in order to break a hold on him. Proteus and Nereus's shape-shifting was to prevent heroes such as Menelaus and Heracles from forcing information from them.[18] Tam Lin, once seized by Janet, was transformed in her arms by the faeries to keep Janet from taking him, but as he had advised her, she did not let go, and so freed him.[19] The motif of capturing a person by holding him through many transformations is found in folktales throughout Europe,[20] and Patricia A. McKillip references it in her Riddle-Master trilogy: a shapeshifting Earthmaster finally wins its freedom by startling the man holding it.
Another variant was used by T. H. White in The Sword in the Stone, where Merlin and Madam Mim fought a wizards' duel, in which the duelists would endlessly transform until one was in a form that could destroy the other.[21]

[enkur]

This reminds me of another comparative example of both magic drink and shape-shifting in the Norse mythology - there are many there but this one is my favorite one. This is the myth about how the poetic art and scholarship came to the gods and men. It's called Skaldskaparmal and it's from the Prosaic Edda (compiled in the 13th century by Snorri Sturlson)

The English translation of the original text could be read here:

www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre05.htm

In brief, there was a war between two races of gods - the Vanir and the Aesir. The former were local chthonic deities of fertility and the latter were sky deities of war who came from Asia Minor. There was no winner in this conflict and at last both sides made a peace-treaty by spitting into a cauldron, then they made a man by their mixed divine spittle. This man was called Kvasir and was the wisest amongst humans combining the wisdom of both divine races. He started to travel all over the world and teach his wisdom to the men.

However, two dwarves killed Kvasir and collected his blood in three vessels and made a special mead thereof. Whoever drank of that mead became a skald (poet-sorcerer) or a scholar. Those dwarves were incorrigible murderers so their next victims were a couple of giants, a male and a female. When their son sought revenge the dwarves gave him the three vessels of precious mead as a compensation.

The giant delivered the three vessels into the charge of his daughter who guarded them in a place surrounded by rocks. Odin, the chief god amongst the Aesir departed in search of the poetic mead. He tricked the nine workers of the giant's brother to kill each other, then took the form of a strong man and offered the giant's brother to do the seasonal work of his dead workers.

When the work was finished he asked as a reward for his labor one drink of the mead. The giant, however, flatly refused to give him a single draught, so his brother unwillingly agreed to secretly help the disguised Odin to get there where the mead was guarded. He unwillingly bored a hole into the rocks, then Odin turned into a serpent and slid therein, but the giant's brother plugged up the hole to prevent him from his way back.

Odin charmed the giant's daughter and fucked her three nights to her full satisfaction at last asking in reward for his sexual athleticism three draughts of the mead. She agreed and Odin had his three draughts by draining all the three vessels one by one. Then he turned into an eagle and flied away from the rocky place. The giant also turned into an eagle and tried to pursue Odin but the latter got faster to Asgard, the abode of the Aesir gods, who were already prepared their cups and Odin spat up the mead into them. Thus "Odin gave the mead of Suttungr to the Æsir and to those men who possess the ability to compose."

[us4-he2-gal2]

Wow - interesting tale. I have to say the story tell of the old world really makes you wonder on a number of things..


One has to wonder about the logic of some of it of course For example, why would two dwarves be able to murder two giants - but Odin has to keep running away from one giant? 0_0 I guess it doesn't matter.

[enkur]

The Nordic tradition usually has its sound logic but unfortunately my brief re-telling of the myth has lost it. The gods, both the Aesir and the Vanir, have become masters of the universe at the cost of many feats, and they should maintain their mastership by doing still more feats because they are all the time challenged by other powerful entities who conciliate only temporarily with their mastership.


The dwarves though small, are exceptionally cunning, insidious, and skilled in many crafts, especially in forging magic objects. There is a myth about the goddess of love and war Freya who descended in their underworld realm to be fucked by them as the price for a magical adornment forged by them she wanted to possess. Those two dwarves in the above myth have in fact prepared the precisious mead of poetry itself. They kill the giant couple in extremely insidious ways and when their son is to avenge for his parents's death they manage to persuade him of the poetic mead's great price.


Most of the giants have an enormous power at the expense of their cleverness. They are usually mightier than the gods but the gods manage to fool them by clever and magical means. There are some exceptions amongst the giants like the giant Mimir who was wiser than the murdered by the dwarves Kvasir. There are also magicians amongst the giants someone of whom even bewitched and fooled the trickster-god Loki and the giant-killer Thor.


I will stop here because the Nordic tradition is my earlier and parallel magical fascination to that of Sumer and would write much about it but I wouldn't like to deviate my attention from the Sumerian "wind theories" I explore in the moment considering also your Sisig hypothesis

[us4-he2-gal2]

Very well then - by the way, Madness and I have something new being cooked up for the 4 winds thread, more perspective from academia - it should be up in the next week or two

[us4-he2-gal2]

A Note on Enmerker and Ensuhkeshdanna

I have come across a small note on this text made by Gabor Zólyomi in N.A.B.U. 1995 N.3; the author responds mainly to the transation of a specific incident in the text made by Adele Berlin in 1979 (as noted above, that author wrote a slim volume on the text in question, entitled Enmerker and Ensuhkeshdanna.) Zólyomi's note, entitled Speaking Cow or Mooing Sorcerer? examines a number of lines in the text where the sorcerer attempts to bewitch the livestock of Sumer.


Berlin had originally read the lines 173-174 as "The cow in the cattle-pen shook it's head at him/ He spoke to the cow ; he conversed with it as a man" and this implies the sorcerer spoke to the cow in it's language (i.e. the sorcerer was mooing). However Zólyomi re-examines these lines noting on the basis of grammar, and on phrase lú-ulù-gin₇ (which implies speaking like a man) , that the correct reading of these lines is "The cow trembled (from fear) before him (=the sorcerer) in the cattle pen; he made the cow speak so that it conversed with him as if it were a human being". In other words, the cow is speaking, and the sorcerer is not mooing.



It is no surprise that the ETCSL version (translated and update through 1998-2005) follows Zólyomi's view of the text - he is credited with the original ETCSL editing of the text and several revisions (GZ = Gábor Zólyomi in the revision history)

[us4-he2-gal2]

Reviewing - Wilcke 2012

Hey enenuru :






I am writing a update on the topic of black magic and sorcery, an update which involves the fascinating story of Enmerkar and En-suhkeš-ana and its evocative and intriguing conjuration battle between the sorcerer of Hamazi and the wise woman of Ereš (in the area of Uruk). For various views on this battle and on black magic the reader can refer to the posts above. More specifically, this update will refer to some of the new perspective available in Claus Wilcke's recent 2012 treatment on this Sumerian poem - this has been published as "The Sumerian Poen Enmerker and En-suhkeš-ana: Epic, Play, Or? : Stage Craft at the Turn of the Third to the Second Millennium B.C." (American Oriental Series Essay 12).


As the name of the book entails, Wilcke will suggest that the contents of the poem were meant to be delivered in some sort of theatrical manner, with the roles of different characters being spoken by different actors/performers. This may not be so much of a stretch when Sumerologists generally agree that this genre of literature is "court poetry" to be recited for the entertainment of royalty and so forth. The Urukian epics (dealing with Enmerker, Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh) were of particular interest to the Ur III kings who identified themselves with the legendary rulers of Uruk. As noted in reply #4 above, Adele Berlin (who treated this same poem) stated "the compositions were intended to be recited
at court or at state celebrations.."

All in all, Wilcke makes some convincing arguments for the central thesis of his work, that the poem is meant to be enacted for its royal audience and not just recited. An example is his observation that the predators conjured up by the wise women in the magical dual carry an ergative marker of the animate type - Sumerian has different verb forms for human and animal type entities. Since these predators have the human type marker, Wilcke supposes that the action refers to human actors envolved in stage craft (possibly dressed like the relevant animal).

But for now lets consider some of the fine details that emerge in Wilcke's discussion of the setting and characters/protangonists. Here are some of the insights I particularly like:



Insight one: The Involvement of Cultural Propaganda and Puns (pgs 11-14)


Wilcke's careful consideration of the names of characters of Uruk and Kesh on the one side, and of Aratta on the other, reveals a sort of cultural propaganda at work in the names used in the Sumerian poem. Here is a condensed summary of those findings.


On the Uruk side you have:

a) Enmerker, king of Uruk, whose name cannot be translated at present. b) Maš-gula and Ur-edena, cattle herder and shepherd of Nisaba, who accuse the sorcerer of sacrilege. Their names mean "Big-sheepfold" and "Steppe-dog". Both names are puns on the occupation of their bearers. c) Namena-tuma, Enmerker's envoy. His name means 'fit for lordship'. d) Old Women Sag̃bur'u: While she is potential an agent acting on behalf of Nisaba in the magical fishing contest, Wilcke suggests she may be Nisaba herself in disguise. Her name means possibly "head cutter," or "head splitter."

All in all, these names are positive and prestiegious



On the side of Aratta you have:


a) En-suhkeš-ana, the lord of Inanna's Iranian city Aratta. Analysis of his name is extremely complicated but Wilcke believes that the sophisticated scribes dealing with the text would associate suhkeš element in the name (royal pectoral) with the threading and weaving of girls - a difficult argument but a possible derogatory pun. b) Ansiga-ri'a: the envoy of En-suhkeš-ana. The name means "begotten under the blue sky." Wilcke suggests that to a Mesopotamian audience of urban elites, this phrase name is considerably derogatory, evoking an uncivilized sexual behavior in Aratta. c) Ur-ĝìri-nuna, the sorcerer from Hamazi enlisted by the King of Aratta to assault the Urukian countryside specifically around Ereš. Read one way his name may mean 'the one of princely feet,' however, this doesn't make much sense and it is unlikely for other reasons. Wilcke sees the name as a pun on the Sumerian word for mule, anše-ĝìri-nun-na. The combined elements ur (dog/lion) and ĝìri-nuna (mule) evoke an odd hybrid creature, but one that is infertile (male mules are always infertile). This idea of infertility seems to be the pun, Wilcke says, as the sorcerer's main role is to sew infertility among the livestock
of Ereš.


All in all, the names of the characters of Aratta seem to have negative connotations.



Insight two: The locality of Aratta and Hamazi


Aratta: Interpretations have varied about the existence of the city of Aratta. Some feel it is purely mythological (Michalowski 1986). Others state that Susa served as the basis for the city in Sumerian poems (C. Mittermayer 2009). Wilcke simply admits that knowledge of Iranian cities in this early period is so limited that deliberating about its reality "remains futile." (pg. 14)


Hamazi: In the poem the sorcerer is said to have come from Hamazi (here written Ha-ma-zu) which was a city that had been destroyed. Michalowski and Steinkeller place the city as having been somewhere on the lower zab river although they differ as to precisely which communities it would have neighbored. (pg.7) Michalowski 1986 states "Hamazi formed the northern corner of the "mental map" of the "Four-corners-and-Sides-of/under-the-Sky," an ub-da limmu-bi, the area of civilization ruled by the Ur III Dynasty." Wilcke explains: "It was a liminal city, since it was part of the uncultured land, the chaos, before its integration into the civilized area and was later still situated on its fringes. This may
explain why its exorcist (maš-maš) is a sorcerer. But it is also liminal in a second way. Its people share the characteristics of foreigners who are seen as non-human and lacking intelligence (Cooper 1983: 30-36; Wilcke 2011:111 f.), the latter point made
explicit by the spelling Ha-ma-zu, literally "may I be taught it."




Insight three: the sorcerer losses due to lack of intelligence



While Vanstiphout saw the major contest between sorcerer and wise woman as black magic against white magic as much as Uruk vs Aratta (see above posts), Wilcke seems hesitant to see the disrupting of the Sumerian economic system as black magic. (pg. 31). Of course its difficult to say what the definition of black magic should be with reference to Mesopotamia.

With the context provided by Wilcke and the background of "ethnic slurs" (such as the Sumerian pun on the city of Hamazi, ha-ma-zu "may I be taught it"), the author offers a further insight about the contest scene: the sorcerer lost because he simply lacks the intelligence to win such a dual. This is explicit of course in the way the story plays out, as the sorcerer repeatedly summons a useless creature from the waters. Wilcke adds "he makes an ever greater fool of himself by turning to the "Old-Woman" with the words "Set me free, my sister, set me free! I wish to safely go to my city. (lines 258-9). This is a stock phrase in love songs, employed by lovers trying to disentangle themselves from the embrace of a partner of the opposite sex." (pg. 27)

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello enenuru:





Continuing the discussion of the transformation dual in world literature (see above, June 2011), I am currently reading through the widely known literary classic Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights, recently ranked as the 7th most influential work of literature in history by a BBC literary critic. This collection of stories, which mainly feature Persian and Arabian elites / royalty as protagonist, date between the 8th and 13th centuries AD. I haven't finished the entire collection (which is huge and spans 4 volumes), but I have taken some notes on the topic of transformation magic. There are two types:



J C Mardrus; E Powys Mathers, 2005. The Book of One Thousand Nights and One Night. New York - Routledge


a) Transformation of a person into an animal (often this is done by a Jinn, and can be reversed by a human, usually a woman (a woman who has been taught the ways of magic by an older wise woman, for example):

***Repeating themes: While a woman (in some cases, a Jinn) is often the one to bewitch the man and turn him into another creature, it is inevitably a woman (often the daughter of someone) who recognizes that the animal is a bewitched man, covers her face, and utters something like 'father, why would you bring me into the sight of a strange man?' Then she performs a right with water and incantation transform the animal back to a man.
A - p. 12: In the Tale of the First Sheikh, the sheikh's wife is said to perform magic on their son and to change him into a calf. ---Later this act is characterized as evil act possible witchcraft (act is done without consent) see p. 14
B - p.12: In the Tale of the Second Sheikh, the sheikh's wife (who turns out to be an ifrītah) has his evil brothers magically changed into dogs for 10 years.
C - p. 46: In the Tale of the Young Man and the Fishes, the prince's wife (a 'sorceress'), who had an adulterous affair with a negro, curses/hexes her husband muttering 'strange unknown words' (magic in foreign/ancient tongue) turning him half into stone.
D - p. 79: In the Tale of the Porter and the Young Girls - a sub-tale of the second Kalandar, A Jinn transforms a man into an ape: "At last he set me down on the top of a high mountain, and, taking a handful of earth, mumbled some words over it; then he muttered: ‘Hum, hum, hum,’ and threw it over me, crying: ‘Come out of that shape and be an ape!’ On the instant I became an ape, at least a hundred years old and as foul-faced as hell itself."
E - p. 110: In the Tale of the Porter and the Young Girls - a sub-tale of Zubaidah - Zubaidah saves a small snake being chased by a large snake. Later, it turns out to be a jinniah (female jinn) who appears to her in the form of a negress, and who does her the favor of changing her treacherous sisters in black bitches for her.


b) the Transformation dual: I've only noted one occurance so far:

A - p. 84: In the Tale of the Porter and the Young Girls, sub-tale of the Second Kalandar, a princess engages in a magic dual with an evil Jinn - she had attempted to undo the magic he had wrought when he turned a prince into an ape. The Jinn is infuriated that she broke some sort of pact the two seemed to have, and he attacks her - a transformation dual ensues with the Jinn and Princess transforming themselves into successively more dangerous / larger creatures in order to defeat the other