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THE DEEP DWELLERS The subterranean dwellers of various ancient religious and mythical traditions have parallels with the underworld beings of modern-day accounts. he legends, myths and literature of mankind have always been filled with fanciful or terrifying accounts of underground lands and races, hidden from surface sight. Rumours of a largely unseen reality, of cavern worlds, hidden tunnel systems which criss-cross the globe, and the occasional accidental discovery of a large geode structure within the Earth, have migrated from the realms of folklore and early sci- entific speculation into literature—and perhaps back into folklore again. When reading and studying the available fiction which touches upon the topic of a sub- terranean world, many similarities come to light. This is interesting insofar as the various writers were not necessarily familiar with one another's works. It is obvious that many of them drew upon folktales and mythology as well as the latest scientific findings and theo- ries of the day; indeed, they had a huge matrix of archetypes and forms with which to work. Religious traditions have also been a major influence on the development of fiction about subterranean worlds and inhabitants, and some brave souls have shared accounts of what they believed to be their own encounters with the denizens that dwell within the Earth's crust. In this work, all of these aspects of underworld studies, and more, will come under care- ful examination, but this is not so much an examination of the underworlds as it is of their inhabitants. MYTHICAL (ANCIENT RELIGIOUS) ACCOUNTS 1. The East One of the earliest examples of subterranean stories is to be found in the Gilgamesh cycle of stories, which some would say is not so much fictitious as it is a distorted account of ancient events. Gilgamesh was an actual king who ruled Uruk (also called Unug) about 2600 BC, and he was supposedly of half-divine origin. Like other heroes of ancient mythic cycles who were demigods, or semi-divine, Gilgamesh longed for an immortality which he saw as his birthright, much the same as Heracles of the Greeks. In one tale from his cycle, he befriends a physically powerful, hairy, subhuman character named Enkidu and teaches him the customs of humanity. In a later tale, Enkidu, on behalf of his friend and king, agrees to venture into the underworld of ancient Mesopotamia to search for someone who has the secret of immortality. Other Sumerian accounts leave little doubt that the Kur or Ki-Gal ("the Great Below") was a place of immense size and great terror. This realm was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and her consort Nergal, a warlike god who had entered her queendom with plans of conquest—only to be seduced by the enemy, who became his wife. The Ki-Gal was said to be filled with a wide range of beings, including spirits and the undead, reani- mated bodies of human beings as well as savage guardians called "scorpion men". Other residents were described as sexless and robotic "artificial" beings called Galatur or Gala, who were used by the rulers of the underworld for missions of kidnapping human beings from the surface world or for other errands. Also present in the underworld were the Utukku, "eagle-headed" reptilian humanoids who are probably the original Djinn and Ifrits of the ancient Middle East. The latter beings were usually depicted with wings, rep- resenting their ability to fly when dispatched on the errands of the rulers of the under- world. Another strange race was the Pazuzu, a canine-faced humanoid monstrosity with reptilian scales and tail. by Wm Michael Mott © 2000 E-mail: mottimorph@earthlink.net Website: http://mpi.mpi-softtech.com/~mott/ DeepDwellersRevis2.htm NEXUS - 59 SUBSURFACE INHABITANTS IN FOLKLORE, MYTH AND LITERATURE FEBRUARY — MARCH 2001