Those ones seeking by magic arts to creep up, Indra, and mount to heaven, the
Dasyus, thou didst shake down. (8. 14. 14; cf. 1. 78. 4)
TheTaittirı ̄ya Bra ̄hman
̇
a (1. 1. 2. 4–6) relates that the Ka ̄lakañja demons tried
to reach heaven by piling up bricks in a great altar. Indra put in a brick of his
own, and when their work was nearly complete he withdrew it so that it all
collapsed.
In Greek myth Otos and Ephialtes, the colossal sons of Poseidon and
Aloeus’ wife Iphimedeia, tried to pile Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon
Ossa so that they could climb to heaven and attack the gods. Apollo killed
them before they could grow to their full size and strength.^147 Latin poets
transfer the mountain-stacking to the Giants.
The motif of piling things up to reach the sky, which may remind us of the
Biblical Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 4), appears again in a West Circassian
story about the Narts, perhaps an offshoot of the Iranian tradition repre-
sented by the Nart sagas of Ossetia. The Narts tried to reach the sky by going
to a mountain-top and standing on one another. As that did not suffice, they
added other people, dwarfs, animals, birds, trees, and stones to the pile, what-
ever they could lay their hands on. The hero Pataraz climbed on top of the
heap, and he would have been able to reach the sky if only he had had one
more cat’s tail at his disposal.^148
The Norse gods have Giants as their perpetual enemies: not the Gigantes of
Classical myth, but hrímþursar and bergrisar, Frost Giants and Mountain
Giants. Thor is always decimating them with his flying hammer. Snorri
(Gylf. 15) avers that they would climb up to heaven across the Rainbow
Bridge if the way were not barred by fire.
Once again we must wonder if this is not ultimately an Indo-European
myth, whatever its original form. It would have a clear purpose: to emphasize,
by means of a paradigmatic story, that the division separating the Celestials
from the Terrestrials is unbridgeable.^149
(^147) Od. 11. 309–20; cf. ‘Hes.’ fr. 19–21, Pind. fr. 162, Apollod. 1. 7. 4.
(^148) Colarusso (2002), 153.
(^149) For more on this theme see West (1997), 121 f.
- Gods and Goddesses 165