The Osirian underworld idea appears to have given origin to the widespread stories found as far apart as Japan and the British Isles regarding “Land-under-Waves” and “the Kingdom of the Sea”. The green floating island of Paradise is referred to in Scottish Gaelic folk-tales. In Fiji the natives tell of a floating island that vanishes when men approach it.[4]
In some Chinese legends Egyptian conceptions blend with those of Babylonia. The Chinese priest who, in the dragon-king story, reached the Underworld through a deep cave, followed in the footsteps of Gilgamesh, who went in search of the “Plant of Life”—the herb that causes man “to renew his youth like the eagle”.[5] Gilgamesh [[100]]entered the cave of the Mountain of Mashi (Sunset Hill), and after passing through its night-black depths, reached the seaside garden in which, as on the island in the Indian story, the trees bore, instead of fruit and flowers, clusters of precious stones. He beheld in the midst of this garden of dazzling splendour the palace of Sabitu, the goddess, who instructed him how to reach the island on which lived his ancestor Pir-naphishtum (Ut-napishtim). Gilgamesh was originally a god, the earlier Gishbilgames of Sumerian texts.[6]
The Indian Hanuman (the monkey-god) similarly enters a deep cave when he goes forth as a spy to Lanka, the dwelling-place of Ravana, the demon who carried away Sita, wife of Rama, the hero of the Rámáyana. A similar story is told in the mythical history of Alexander the Great. There are also western European legends of like character. Hercules searches for the golden apples that grow in the Hesperian gardens.[7] In some Far Eastern stories the hero searches for a sword instead of an herb. “Every weapon,” declares an old Gaelic saying, “has its demon.” The same belief prevailed in China, where dragons sometimes appeared in the form of weapons, and in India, where the spirits of celestial weapons appeared before heroes like Arjuna and Rama.[8] In the Teutonic Balder story, as related by Saxo Grammaticus,[9] the hero is slain by a sword taken from the Underworld, where it was kept by Miming (Mimer), the god, in an Underworld cave. Hother, who gains possession of it, goes by a road “hard for mortal man to travel”.
In the Norse version the sword becomes an herb—the mistletoe, a “cure-all”, like the Chinese dragon herb and [[101]]the Babylonian “Plant of Life”. Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur, was obtained from the lake-goddess (a British “Naga”), and was flung back into the lake before he died:
So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipped the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.[10]
The Japanese story of the famous Kusanagi sword is a Far-Eastern link between the Celestial herb- and weapon-legends of Asia and Europe. It tells that this magic sword was one of the three treasures possessed by the imperial family of Japan, and that the warrior who wielded it could put to flight an entire army. At a naval battle the sword was worn by the boy-Emperor, Antoku Tennō. He was unable to make use of it, and when the enemy were seen to be victorious, the boy’s grandmother, Nu-no-ama, clutched him in her arms and leapt into the sea.