Samizdat

“Leaving, meantime, the many problems which arise from consideration of the Deluge legends and their connection with primitive agricultural myths, the attention of readers may be directed to the Babylonian conception of the Otherworld.

Pir-napishtim, who escaped destruction at the Flood, resides in an Island Paradise, which resembles the Greek “Islands of the Blessed”, and the Irish “Tir nan og” or “Land of the Young,” situated in the western ocean, and identical with the British …

… island-valley of Avilion,

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies

Deep meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns

And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.

Only two human beings were permitted to reside on the Babylonian island paradise, however. These were Pir-napishtim and his wife.

Apparently Gilgamesh could not join them there. His gods did not transport heroes and other favoured individuals to a happy isle or isles like those of the Greeks and Celts and Aryo-Indians.”

Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, 1915.