Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

XXXVIII
INTRODUCTION.
succeeded in fl)'Ing through the air on an eagle's
pinions up to heaven. In the version of the Pseudo-
Callisthenes (p. 277),
it is said that "he flew through
"the air on an eagle, and he arrived in the heights
"of the heavens, and he explored them, and he
"saw the east and the west thereof .
. . and the
"stations of the birth and going forth of the
"stars", &c. In the "Christian Romance" (p. 474),
a detailed account is given of how he tamed
certain large birds by feeding them, and of how
he and some of his mighty men leaped upon their
backs and were borne away by them into the
darkness, and of how after three days and three
nights they arrived in the Country of the Living.
Arabic tradition affirms (p. 33)' that Nimrod also
tried to ascend into heaven by means of a chest
drawn by four huge birds, and that after wandering
about in the air for some time he fell down to
the earth with great violence; but all these stories
Etanna the arc based upon the legend of an ancient Bab)'-
byion.°a. "Ionian hero called Etanna.^ What the oldest form
of the story was like cannot be said, but the
fragments of an Assyrian copy, made for the Royal
Library at Nineveh by order of Assur-bani-pal,
king of Assyria about B. C. 668— 626, have come
down to us.^ In this version of the legend it seems
^ In the note to the translation on p. 278, for p. 277
read p. 33.
3 For the cuneiform text and a German translation see
E. T. Harper in Beitrlige zur Assyriologie, Leipzig^ 1S92, Bd.