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Chapter IX.
BABYLONIAN FABLES.
Fables.—Common in the East.—Description.—Power of speech in animals.—Story of the eagle.—Serpent.—Shamas.—The eagle caught.—Eats the serpent.—Anger of birds.—Etana.—Seven gods.—Third tablet.—Speech of eagle.—Story of the fox.—His cunning.—Judgment of Shamas.—His show of sorrow.—His punishment.—Speech of fox.—Fable of the horse and ox.—They consort together.—Speech of the ox.—His good fortune.—Contrast with the horse.—Hunting the ox.—Speech of the horse.—Offers to recount story.—Story of Ishtar.—Further tablets.
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OMBINED with these stories of the gods, traditions of the early history of man, and accounts of the Creation, are fragments of a series in which the various animals speak and act. I call these tablets "Fables" to distinguish them from the others, but, as many of the others are equally fabulous and very similar in style, the name must not be taken to imply any distinctive character in this direction. It is probable that all these stories even in Babylonia were equally believed in by the devout and the ignorant, treated as alle-
