This attack was a primitive attempt to account for lunar eclipses, dressed up in poetry, and may be compared…
- Date of account
- Ancient material presented in a revised 1880 edition
- Source
- The Chaldean account of Genesis: Containing the description of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the times of the patriarchs
- Reference
- The Chaldean account of Genesis: Containing the description of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the times of the patriarchs · selected passage 10
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English translation and reconstruction from cuneiform sources
- Translation
- George Smith with later editorial material
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
This attack was a primitive attempt to account for lunar eclipses, dressed up in poetry, and may be compared with the Chinese belief that when the moon is eclipsed it has been devoured by the dragon of night
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThis attack was a primitive attempt to account for lunar eclipses, dressed up in poetry, and may be compared with the Chinese belief that when the moon is eclipsed it has been devoured by the dragon of night. Similarly the Egyptians told how Set or Typhon pursued the moon, the eye of Horus, how it waned week by week as he struck it, and finally passed into eclipse when he blinded it altogether. According to Hindu legend, the immortal head of the serpent-demon Râhu, cut off by Vishnu who had been informed by the sun and moon of his theft of the drink of immortality, incessantly pursues the two informers in order to devour them, and a Scandinavian myth makes the sun and moon to be always pursued by two wolves, Sköll and Hati, the latter of whom, also called Mânagarmr or dog of the moon, will at the end of the times swallow up the chief luminary of night.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a passage from a historical religious or interpretive text. Its genre, manuscript history, translation and place within its own tradition are part of the evidence and must remain visible.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice can compare the passage's descriptive features with later reports, but resemblance does not turn a vision, angel, mythic creature or sacred narrative into a modern incident report.
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