his son, and made me his gardener. As a gardener, I was beloved by the goddess Ishtar."
It is unlikely that this story was invented by Sargon. Like the many variants of it found in other countries, it was probably founded on a form of the Tammuz-Adonis myth. Indeed, a new myth would not have suited Sargon's purpose so well as the adaptation of
an old one, which was more likely to make popular appeal when connected with his name. The references to the goddess Ishtar, and Sargon's early life as a gardener, suggest that the king desired to be remembered as an agricultural Patriarch, if not of divine, at any rate of semi-divine origin.
What appears to be an early form of the widespread Tammuz myth is the Teutonic legend regarding the mysterious child who
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came over the sea to inaugurate a new era of civilization and instruct the people how to grow corn and become great warriors. The Northern peoples, as archaeological evidence suggests, derived their knowledge of agriculture, and therefore their agricultural myths, from the Neolithic representatives of the Mediterranean race with whom they came into contact. There can be no doubt but that the Teutonic legend refers to the introduction of agriculture. The child is called "Scef " or "Sceaf ", which signifies "Sheaf ", or "Scyld, the son of Sceaf ". Scyld is the patriarch of the Scyldings, the Danes, a people of mixed origin. In the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf poem, the reference is to "Scyld", but Ethelweard, William of Malmesbury, and others adhered to "Sceaf " as the name of the Patriarch of the Western Saxons.
The legend runs that one day a boat was seen approaching the shore; it was not propelled by oars or sail. In it lay a child fast asleep, his head pillowed upon a sheaf of grain. He was surrounded by armour, treasure, and various implements, including the fire-borer. The child was reared by the people who found him, and he became a great instructor and warrior and ruled over the tribe as king. In Beowulf Scyld is the father of the elder Beowulf, whose grandson Hrothgar built the famous Hall. The poem opens with a reference to the patriarch "Scyld of the Sheaf ". When he died, his body, according to the request he had made, was laid in a ship which was set adrift:
Upon his breast lay many treasures which were to travel with him into the power of the flood. Certainly they (the mourners) furnished him with no less of gifts, of tribal treasures, than those had done who, in his early days, started him over the sea alone, child as he was. Moreover, they set besides a gold-embroidered standard high above his head, and let the flood bear him--gave him to
the sea. Their soul was sad, their spirit sorrowful. Who received that load, men, chiefs of council, heroes under heaven, cannot for
certain tell.[116]
Sceaf or Scyld is identical with Yngve, the patriarch of the Ynglings; with Frey, the harvest and boar god, son of Njord,[117] the sea
god; and with Hermod, referred to as follows in the Eddic "Lay of Hyndla":
To some grants he wealth, to his children war fame, Word skill to many and wisdom to men,
Fair winds to seafarers, song craft to skalds, And might of manhood to many a warrior.
Tammuz is similarly "the heroic lord of the land", the "wise one", the "lord of knowledge", and "the sovereign, lord of invocation".
Heimdal, watchman of the Teutonic gods, also dwelt for a time among men as "Rig", and had human offspring, his son Thrall being the ancestor of the Thralls, his son Churl of churls, and Jarl of noblemen.
Tammuz, like Heimdal, is also a guardian. He watches the flocks and herds, whom he apparently guards against the Gallu demons as Heimdal guards the world and the heavens against attacks by giants and monsters. The flocks of Tammuz, Professor Pinches suggests, "recall the flocks of the Greek sun god Helios. These were the clouds illuminated by the sun, which were likened to sheep-
-indeed, one of the early Sumerian expressions for 'fleece' was 'sheep of the sky'. The name of Tammuz in Sumerian is Dumu-zi, or in its rare fullest form, Dumuzida, meaning 'true or faithful son'. There is probably some legend attached to this which is at present unknown."[118]
So the Sumerian hymn-chanters lamented:
Like an herdsman the sentinel place of sheep and cattle he
(Tammuz) has forsaken...
From his home, from his inhabited domain, the son, he of wisdom, pre-eminent steer of heaven,
The hero unto the nether herding place has taken his way.[119]
Agni, the Aryo-Indian god, who, as the sky sentinel, has points of resemblance to Heimdal, also links with Tammuz, especially in his
Mitra character:
Agni has been established among the tribes of men, the son of the waters, Mitra acting in the right way. Rigveda, iii, 5, 3.
Agni, who has been looked and longed for in Heaven, who has been looked for on earth--he who has been looked for has entered all
herbs. Rigveda, i, 98.[120]
Tammuz, like the Egyptian lunar and solar god Khonsu, is "the healer", and Agni "drives away all disease". Tammuz is the god "of sonorous voice"; Agni "roars like a bull"; and Heimdal blows a horn when the giants and demons threaten to attack the citadel of the gods. As the spring sun god, Tammuz is "a youthful warrior", says Jastrow, "triumphing over the storms of winter".[121] The
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storms, of course, were symbolized as demons. Tammuz, "the heroic lord", was therefore a demon slayer like Heimdal and Agni. Each of these gods appear to have been developed in isolation from an archaic spring god of fertility and corn whose attributes were symbolized. In Teutonic mythology, for instance, Heimdal was the warrior form of the patriarch Scef, while Frey was the deified agriculturist who came over the deep as a child. In Saxo's mythical history of Denmark, Frey as Frode is taken prisoner by a storm giant, Beli, "the howler", and is loved by his hag sister in the Teutonic Hades, as Tammuz is loved by Eresh-ki-gal, spouse of the storm god Nergal, in the Babylonian Hades. Frode returns to earth, like Tammuz, in due season.
It is evident that there were various versions of the Tammuz myth in Ancient Babylonia. In one the goddess Ishtar visited Hades to search for the lover of her youth. A part of this form of the legend survives in the famous Assyrian hymn known as "The Descent of Ishtar". It was first translated by the late Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum. A box containing inscribed tablets had been sent from Assyria to London, and Mr. Smith, with characteristic patience and skill, arranged and deciphered them, giving to the world a fragment of ancient literature infused with much sublimity and imaginative power. Ishtar is depicted descending to dismal Hades, where the souls of the dead exist in bird forms:
I spread like a bird my hands.
I descend, I descend to the house of darkness, the dwelling of the god Irkalla:
To the house out of which there is no exit, To the road from which there is no return:
To the house from whose entrance the light is taken,
The place where dust is their nourishment and their food mud. Its chiefs also are like birds covered with feathers;
The light is never seen, in darkness they dwell.... Over the door and bolts is scattered dust.
When the goddess reaches the gate of Hades she cries to the porter:
Keeper of the waters, open thy gate, Open thy gate that I may enter.
If thou openest not the gate that I may enter
I will strike the door, the bolts I will shatter,
I will strike the threshold and will pass through the doors; I will raise up the dead to devour the living,
Above the living the dead shall exceed in numbers.
The porter answers that he must first consult the Queen of Hades, here called Allatu, to whom he accordingly announces the arrival of the Queen of Heaven. Allatu's heart is filled with anger, and makes reference to those whom Ishtar caused to perish:
Let me weep over the strong