Throughout this volume comparative notes have been compiled in dealing with Mesopotamian beliefs with purpose to assist the reader towards the study of linking myths and legends.  Interesting parallels have been gleaned from various religious literatures in Europe, Egypt, India, and elsewhere.  It will be found that certain relics of Babylonian intellectual life, which have a distinctive geographical significance, were shared by peoples in other cultural areas where they were similarly overlaid with local colour.  Modes of thought were the products of modes of life and were influenced in their development by human experiences.  The influence of environment on the growth of culture has long been recognized, but consideration must also be given to the choice of environment by peoples who had adopted distinctive habits of life.  Racial units migrated from cultural areas to districts suitable for colonization and carried with them a heritage of immemorial beliefs and customs which were regarded as being quite as indispensable for their welfare as their implements and domesticated animals.

When consideration is given in this connection to the conservative element in primitive religion, it is not surprising to find that the growth of religious myths was not so spontaneous in early civilizations of the highest order as has hitherto been assumed.  It seems clear that in each great local mythology we have to deal, in the first place, not with symbolized ideas so much as symbolized folk beliefs of remote antiquity and, to a certain degree, of common inheritance.  It may not be found possible to arrive at a conclusive solution of the most widespread, and therefore the most ancient folk myths, such as, for instance, the Dragon Myth, or the myth of the culture hero.  Nor, perhaps, is it necessary that we should concern ourselves greatly regarding the origin of the idea of the dragon, which in one country symbolized fiery drought and in another overwhelming river floods.

The student will find footing on surer ground by following the process which exalts the dragon of the folk tale into the symbol of evil and primordial chaos.  The Babylonian Creation Myth, for instance, can be shown to be a localized and glorified legend in which the hero and his tribe are displaced by the war god and his fellow deities whose welfare depends on his prowess.  Merodach kills the dragon, Tiamat, as the heroes of Eur-Asian folk stories kill grisly hags, by casting his weapon down her throat.

    He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart,
    He overcame her and cut off her life;
    He cast down her body and stood upon it ... 
    And with merciless club he smashed her skull. 
    He cut through the channels of her blood,
    And he made the north wind to bear it away into secret places.

Afterwards

    He divided the flesh of the Ku-pu and devised a cunning plan.

Mr. L.W.  King, from whose scholarly Seven Tablets of Creation these lines are quoted, notes that “Ku-pu” is a word of uncertain meaning.  Jensen suggests “trunk, body”.  Apparently Merodach obtained special knowledge after dividing, and perhaps eating, the “Ku-pu”.  His “cunning plan” is set forth in detail:  he cut up the dragon’s body: