Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and GravelDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Comets; Drift
arms and eyes, darting fire, remind us of the description given of
the apostate angel in the other legends:
###
THE AFRITE IN THE PILLAR.
"He was tall and black; and he was crying out 'Extolled be the
perfection of my Lord, who hath appointed me this severe affliction
and painful torture until the day of resurrection!'"
{p. 271}
The party of Talib were stupefied at the sight and retreated in
fright. And the wise man, the Sheik Abdelsamad, one of the party,
drew near and asked the imprisoned monster his history. And he
replied:
"I am an Afrite of the genii, and my name is Dahish, the son of
Elamash, and I am restrained here by the majesty of God.
"There belonged to one of the sons of Eblis an idol of red carnelian,
of which I was made guardian; and there used to worship it one of the
kings of the sea, of illustrious dignity, of great glory, leading,
among his troops of the genii, a million warriors who smote with
swords before him, and who answered his prayer in cases of
difficulty. These genii, who obeyed him, were under my command and
authority, following my words when I ordered them: all of them were
in rebellion against Solomon the son of David (on both of whom be
peace!), and I used to enter the body of the idol, to command them
and to forbid them."
Solomon sent word to this king of the sea that he must give up the
worship of the idol of red carnelian; the king consulted the idol,
and this Afrite, speaking through the idol, encouraged the king to
refuse. What,--he said to him,--can Solomon do to thee, "when thou
art in the midst of this great sea?" And so Solomon came to compel
the island-race to worship the true God; he surrounded his island,
and filled the land with his troops, assisted by birds and wild
beasts, and a dreadful battle followed in the air:
"After this they came upon us all together, and we contended with him
in a wide tract _for a period of two days_; and calamity befell us on
the third day, and the decree of God (whose name be exalted!) was
executed among us. The first who charged upon Solomon were I and my
troops: and I said to my companions, 'Keep in your places in the
battle-field while I go forth to them and challenge _Dimiriat_."'
(Dimiriat was the Sun, the
{p. 272}
bright one.) "And lo, _he came forth, like a great mountain, his
fires flaming and his smoke ascending;_ and he approached and _smote
me with a flaming fire; and his arrow prevailed over my fire_. He
cried out at me _with a prodigious cry_, so that I imagined the
_heaven had fallen_ and closed over me, and the mountains shook at
his voice.
###
DAHISH OVERTAKEN BY DIMIRIAT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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