Like the Ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians also had their kindly spirits who brought luck and the various enjoyments of life.  A good “labartu” might attend on a human being like a household fairy of India or Europe:  a friendly “shedu” could protect a household against the attacks of fierce demons and human enemies.  Even the spirits of Fate who served Anu, god of the sky, and that “Norn” of the Underworld, Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades, might sometimes be propitious:  if the deities were successfully invoked they could cause the Fates to smite spirits of disease and bringers of ill luck.  Damu, a friendly fairy goddess, was well loved, because she inspired pleasant dreams, relieved the sufferings of the afflicted, and restored to good health those patients whom she selected to favour.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead the kindly spirits are overshadowed by the evil ones, because the various magical spells which were put on record were directed against those supernatural beings who were enemies of mankind.  Similarly in Babylonia the fragments of this class of literature which survive deal mainly with wicked and vengeful demons.  It appears probable, however, that the highly emotional Sumerians and Akkadians were on occasion quite as cheerful a people as the inhabitants of ancient Egypt.  Although they were surrounded by bloodthirsty furies who desired to shorten their days, and their nights were filled with vague lowering phantoms which inspired fear, they no doubt shared, in their charm-protected houses, a comfortable feeling of security after performing magical ceremonies, and were happy enough when they gathered round flickering lights to listen to ancient song and story and gossip about crops and traders, the members of the royal house, and the family affairs of their acquaintances.

The Babylonian spirit world, it will be seen, was of complex character.  Its inhabitants were numberless, but often vaguely defined, and one class of demons linked with another.  Like the European fairies of folk belief, the Babylonian spirits were extremely hostile and irresistible at certain seasonal periods; and they were fickle and perverse and difficult to please even when inclined to be friendly.  They were also similarly manifested from time to time in various forms.  Sometimes they were comely and beautiful; at other times they were apparitions of horror.  The Jinn of present-day Arabians are of like character; these may be giants, cloudy shapes, comely women, serpents or cats, goats or pigs.

Some of the composite monsters of Babylonia may suggest the vague and exaggerated recollections of terror-stricken people who have had glimpses of unfamiliar wild beasts in the dusk or amidst reedy marshes.  But they cannot be wholly accounted for in this way.  While animals were often identified with supernatural beings, and foreigners were called “devils”, it would be misleading to assert that the spirit world reflects confused folk memories of human and bestial