This Zu bird is plainly the same as the god Zu of the former legend, and his nature is shown by a passage in the annals of Assur-nazir-pal (“Cuneiform Inscriptions,” vol. i. p. 22, col. ii. l. 107), who says that his warriors “like the divine Zu bird upon them darted.” This bird is called the cloud or storm-bird, the flesh-eating bird, the lion or giant bird, the bird of prey, the bird with sharp beak; and it is not difficult to see what the deified bird really was. It was clearly the storm-cloud, which appears in Aryan folklore under the varying forms of the eagle, the woodpecker, and the robin redbreast, the bird of Thor; while in Chinese mythology the storm-bird is described as “a bird which, in flying, obscures the sun, and of whose quills are made water-tuns.” The roc of the “Arabian Nights,” with its wings of ten thousand fathoms in width, and its egg, which it was a sin in Aladdin to wish to take from the place where it hung, is but an echo of the Chinese storm-bird; and the identity of the Chaldean Zu with the latter is demonstrated by its Accadian name, which signifies “the bird of the divine storm-cloud.” Just as Prometheus brought the lightning from heaven to earth, and suffered the penalty of enchainment to a desert rock, so, too, the storm-bird of Accad stole the secrets of the gods, and was punished by exile from them, and transformation into a bird. When once the storm-cloud had been likened to a bird, it was easy enough to identify it with an actual bird of similar name which swooped upon its prey with sharp beak. That the lightning which darted from the bosom of the black tempest really formed the tablets of destiny was a ready conclusion to a people who read the future in the message sent through the lightning from heaven to earth. Even the Hebrews saw in the thunder “the voice of God.” Lugal-turda, it may be added, was the patron of the city of Amarda or Marad, and is said to have been the deity worshipped by Izdubar.

In the story of the offence of Zu there is another instance of the variations which constantly occur in the Assyrian inscriptions with respect to the relationship of the gods. Nebo is usually called son of Merodach, but in this inscription he is called son of Anu. The part that he plays in it is due to the fact that he was identified with the “meridian sun.”

Chapter VIII.
THE EXPLOITS OF DIBBARA.

Dibbara.—God of Pestilence.—Itak.—The Plague.—Seven warrior gods.—Destruction of people.—Anu.—Goddess of Karrak.—Speech of Bel.—Sin and destruction of Babylonians.—Samas.—Sin and destruction of Erech.—Istar.—The great god and Duran.—Cutha.—Internal wars.—Itak goes to Syria.—Power and glory of Dibbara.—Song of Dibbara.—Blessings on his worship.—God Ner.—Prayer to arrest the Plague.—Antiquity of the legend.—Itak.

The tablets recording this story are five in number, but a few fragments only of them have as yet been found. From the indications presented by these fragments the first four tablets seem each to have had four columns of writing, while the fifth tablet was a smaller one of two columns containing the remainder of the story.

The god whose exploits are principally recorded was the leader of the plague-demons, and bears the name of Dibbara. He has the title of “the darkening one,” which recalls the passage in Psalm xci. 6, “the pestilence that walketh in darkness.”