Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

XLII INTRODUCTION.
of the Assyrian legends, as Lidzbarski has already
suggested. In the Alexander story we are told
that the hero slays a mighty dragon that has laid
waste the country for a long time (p. 167), and
his abode seems to have been partly on a mountain
The Dragon, and partly on a river bank; he is of course slain
by Alexander, and he dies a terrible death caused
by red-hot stones setting fire to pitch and sulphur
which he had been begfuiled into swallowinsf.
Here clearly we have a reminiscence of the fearful
monster Tiamat' which was slain by Marduk; in
this case Alexander becomes identified with the
Sun-god—Marduk in Babj'lonia, and Ra in Egypt
who scatters and destroys the hosts of darkness.
In his travels by sea it will be remembered that
Alexander once made a descent therein in a glass
gace (p. 285), and that while he was there the
Angel of the Sea shewed him some of the monsters
of the deep. One creature came and bit the cage
with his teeth, and his length was such that two
days passed before Alexander saw his tail; another
Sea mon- monster appeared, and it took two days and two
nights for him to pass before the cage. Presentl)'
a still more huge sea monster appeared, for al-
though, according to the Angel's instructions, he
rushed past the cage with the speed of lightning,
it was three whole days and nights before Alexan-
der saw the end of him. We might think that
this was the parent of all the "sea-serpent" stories
' See Zimmern, in ScJwpfimg wid Chaos, p. 411.