The library of Assur-bani-pal contains many cuneiform tablets dealing with magic, but there are also extant many magical tablets of the later Babylonian Empire. These were known to the Babylonians by some name or word, indicative perhaps of the special sphere of their activities. Thus we have the Maklu ('burning'), Surpu ('consuming'), Utukki limnûti ('evil spirits'), and Labartu ('witch-hag') series, besides many other texts dealing with magical practices.
The Maklu series deals with spells against witches and wizards, images of whom are to be consumed by fire to the accompaniment of suitable spells and prayers. The Surpu series contains prayers and incantations against taboo. That against evil spirits provides the haunted with spells which will exorcise demons, ghosts, and the powers of the air generally, and place devils under a ban. In other magical tablets the diseases to which poor humanity is prone are guarded against, and instructions are given on the manner in which they may be transferred to the dead bodies of animals, usually swine or goats.
[Illustration: Exorcising Demons of Disease.--From _Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, by Professor Morris Jastrow.--By permission of Messrs G.P. Putnam's Sons.]
The Assyrian physician had perforce to be something of a demonologist, as possession by devils was held to be the cause of divers diseases, and we find incantations sprinkled among prescriptions. Occasionally, too, we come upon the fag-end of a folk-tale or dip momentarily into myth, as in a prescription for the toothache, compounded of fermented drink, the plant _sakilbir_, and oil--probably as efficacious in the case of that malady as most modern ones are. The story attached to the cure is as follows:
When Anu had created the heavens, the earth created the rivers, the rivers the canals, and the canals the marshes, which in turn created the worm. And the worm came weeping before Ea, saying, "What wilt thou give me for my food, what wilt thou give me for my devouring?" "I will give thee ripe figs," replied the god, "ripe figs and scented wood." "Bah," replied the worm, "what are ripe figs to me, or what is scented wood? Let me drink among the teeth and batten on the gums that I may devour the blood of the teeth and the strength thereof." This tale alludes to a Babylonian superstition that worms consume the teeth.