354 
serves at once for nose and month, wide open. He appears to be seizing 
Pirithous by the neck with one hand, while with the other he brandishes a 
huge black and blue serpent over the head of Theseus ” {Cities and Cemeteries 
of Etruria , i. 353). He has also “ open wings.” Any explanation of the 
name “tuchulcha” (= tu-kul-ka ) will, I feel sure, be sought for in vain amongst 
Aryan dialects ; but when we turn to the language of Akkad, the whole 
occult representation at once becomes luminous. Tu (vide p. 52) = (1) The 
setting-sun, and hence (2) Darkness (Erebos, vide Zoroaster , p. 17, note 2). 
Kul (vide Prof. Sayce, Assyrian Grammar , Syllabary, No. 375) is “ to 
destroy” (cf. the Etruscan, Kul- mu, the Turkish Ghoul , etc.). Ka or ca is 
“ mouth” (As. Gram., Syllabary, No. 39. The cuneiform combination is the 
ideograph of a mouth. Vide Geo. Smith, Phonetic Values of the Cuneiform 
Characters, 5). Tuchulcha would therefore signify in Akkadian the “Destroy- 
ing-mouth-of-Darkness,” represented by the Manducus-figure (vide sup. p. 
29, note 4), “ the jaws of vacant darkness” (Tennyson, InMemoriam, xxxiv.), 
into which the luckless heroes have fallen, and is thus a variant phrase of 
the wolf Fenrir and the dog Garmr ; but the general idea is naturally the 
common property of both Aryan and Turanian. Tuchulcha, like night, 
“ embraces with dusky wings.” 
The eagle’s beak is a peculiar feature, and one which reminds us of the 
eagle-headed being (formerly called Nisroch, vide 2 Kings, xix. 37). The 
LXX. read variously, Asarach, Nasarach, or Mesorach) who appears on the 
sculptures at Nirorud, holding the mystic pine-cone (vide The Great Dionysiak 
Myth, Vol. II. cap. viii., sec. 2. In voc. Cone and Pine). But there was 
also an archaic (Jhaldeo-Akkadian legend respecting a wicked being, appa- 
rently one of the inferior gods, called Zu (vide Geo. Smith, Chaldean Account 
of Genesis, cap. vii. The Sin of the God Zu ; Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 
171, note 6), who was connected with or transformed into a terrible bird 
called the Zu-bird. This creature is described as a sharp-beaked, flesh- 
eating, quick-darting, lion, giant, cloud, and storm-bird (vide Delitzsch, 
Assyrische Studien, 96) ; and in the myth the actual habits of some “ ravenous 
bird” (Isaiah, xlvi. 11, where the expression is used symbolically) of the 
country are evidently applied to natural phenomena. The cloud-and-storm 
bird is the upper or aerial darkness, in fact a variant phase of the giantess 
Angurbodha (vide sup. p. 27) ; and the gloom which falls from above (cf. 
Homer, Od., v. 294 : “Night started from heaven ”), sinks to the Under-world, 
Avliere it is personified as Fenrir or Tuchulcha. The sharp beak and quick 
darting probably refer to the lightning. In addition, however, to the fore- 
going line cf thought, it is quite possible that in the mysterious history of the 
god Zu, his bird the eagle, and his insults to and quarrel with the divinities 
of the Chaldeo-Akkadian Pantheon may, as I have already elsewhere {The 
Great Dionysiak Myth, ii. 257, note 3) suggested, be dimly portrayed — some 
archaic religious dispute between Aryan, Turanian, and Semite, between the 
followers of Zeus-Dyaus and of Bel, such a schism as that which subsequently 
broke out between Indian and Iranian (vide Zoroaster, pp. 15, 17, 60). The 
Avars and discords between different bodies of religionists are frequently 
described in legend as the contests of their respective divinities. (For 
numerous illustrations of this principle, vide The Great Dionysiak Myth , 
cap. x.) 
