The dark tunnel is met with in many British stories of daring heroes who set out to explore it, but never return.  In the Scottish versions the adventurers are invariably pipers who are accompanied by dogs.  The sound of the pipes is heard for a time; then the music ceases suddenly, and shortly afterwards the dog returns without a hair upon its body.  It has evidently been in conflict with demons.

The tunnel may run from a castle to the seashore, from a cave on one side of a hill to a cave on the other, or from a seashore cave to a distant island.

It is possible that these widespread tunnel stories had origin among the cave dwellers of the Palaeolithic Age, who believed that deep caverns were the doors of the underground retreats of dragons and giants and other supernatural enemies of mankind.

In Babylonia, as elsewhere, the priests utilized the floating material from which all mythologies were framed, and impressed upon it the stamp of their doctrines.  The symbolized stories were afterwards distributed far and wide, as were those attached to the memory of Alexander the Great at a later period.  Thus in many countries may be found at the present day different versions of immemorial folk tales, which represent various stages of culture, and direct and indirect contact at different periods with civilizations that have stirred the ocean of human thought, and sent their ideas rippling in widening circles to far-distant shores.

CHAPTER IX.

DELUGE LEGEND, THE ISLAND OF THE BLESSED, AND HADES

Babylonian Story of the Flood—­The Two Immortals on the Island of the Blessed—­Deluge Legends in the Old and New Worlds—­How Babylonian Culture reached India—­Theory of Cosmic Periods—­Gilgamesh resembles the Indian Yama and Persian Yimeh—­Links with Varuna and Mitra—­The Great Winter in Persian and Teutonic Mythologies—­Babylonian Hades compared with the Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Teutonic, and Celtic Otherworlds—­Legend of Nergal and the Queen of Death—­Underworld originally the Grave—­Why Weapons, &c., were Buried with the Dead—­Japanese and Roman Beliefs—­Palaeolithic Burial Customs—­“Our Graves are our Houses”—­Importance of Babylonian Funerary Ceremonies—­Doctrine of Eternal Bliss in Egypt and India—­Why Suppressed in Babylonia—­Heavy Burial Fees—­Various Burial Customs.

The story of the Deluge which was related to Gilgamesh by Pir-napishtim runs as follows:—­

“Hear me, O Gilgamesh, and I will make revelation regarding the hidden doings of the high gods.  As thou knowest, the city of Shurippak is situated upon the bank of the Euphrates.  The gods were within it:  there they assembled together in council.  Anu, the father, was there, and Bel the counsellor and warrior, Ninip the messenger, and Ennugi the governor.  Ea, the wise lord, sat also with them.  In their hearts the gods agreed together to send a great deluge.