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Mandean Legend Concerning the Mountain of the Maddai:
Now the head-priest had a daughter, and he had built a sanctuary, a secret place of worship, on the mountain. Thither he was wont to go and take the girl, for he had knowledge of Liwet (Dilbat, Venus), who is a female spirit, and inhabits the star Liwet. She is so lovely to look upon that if a man sees her he swoons away. She wears a diadem of great beauty on her brow, and a wonderful perfume issues from it, so exquisite that he who smells it loses his senses and becomes unconscious. The diadem is of lights, which play and dazzle. There are wise men who see her, and there are places where they make her a sanctuary, bringing a beautiful girl or a handsome boy to it and placing him or her therein. Then they read secret incantations, and she (= Venus) descends into the girl or boy and answers the questions which are put to her. Much knowledge is to be learnt from her.
The head-priest used to take his daughter into this secret sanctuary and Liwet used to descend into her. Her father used to put a glass bowl filled with water before the girl and say to her, ‘Gaze into it!’ Then he began to read incantations, read, read, read, until the glass became red, became white, became green, became blue, dī, dī, dī, dī! until the glass became like a globe of light. At that moment, a sweet and pleasant wind breathed upon the girl and she slept, and Liwet entered into her thoughts and spoke through her mouth. The head-priest arose and spoke to her (= Liwet) thus: ‘Of thy favour, help us! The soldiers of the Turks have come against us to do us an injury, and thou knowest we have done them no harm!’ Liwet replied, ‘I will cause them to perish! They cannot harm you while we are in the world.’ The head-priest said to her, ‘Of thy favour, what can we do against them?’ Answered Liwet, ‘I can do that which will prevent them from seeing. It will become black before them and they will be unable to see.’
Source (list of abbreviations)
Mandean Legend Concerning the Mountain of the Maddai
Bibliography
| Drower 1937, 311 | Drower, Ethel Stefana. The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. Their cults, customs, magic, legends, and folklore. London: Clarendon Press 1937. |
Amar Annus
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