A vestige of the transition from magic to religion may perhaps be discerned in the belief, shared by many peoples, that the gods themselves are adepts in magic, guarding their persons by talismans and working their will by spells and incantations. Thus the Egyptian gods, we are told, could as little dispense with the help of magic as could men; like men they wore amulets to protect themselves, and used spells to overcome each other. Above all the rest Isis was skilled in sorcery and famous for her incantations.​[841] In Babylonia the great god Ea was reputed to be the inventor of magic, and his son Marduk, the chief deity of Babylon, inherited the art from his father. Marduk is described as “the master of exorcism, the magician of the gods.” {p241} Another text declares that “the incantation is the incantation of Marduk, the exorcist is the image of Marduk.”​[842] In the legend of the creation it is related that when Marduk was preparing to fight the monster Tiamat he gave a proof of his magical powers to the assembled gods by causing a garment to disappear and reappear again at the word of his mouth. And the other Babylonian deities had in like manner recourse to magic, especially to magical words or spells. “The word is above all the instrument of the gods; it seems to suit the high conception of their power better than mere muscular effort; the hymns celebrate the irresistible might of their word; it is by their word that they compel both animate and inanimate beings to answer their purposes; in short, they employ almost exclusively the oral rites of magic.” And like men they made use of amulets and talismans.​[843] In the Vedic religion the gods are often represented as attaining their ends by magical means; in particular the god Bṛhaspati, “the creator of all prayers,” is regarded as “the heavenly embodiment of the priesthood, in so far as the priesthood is invested with the power, and charged with the task, of influencing the course of things by prayers and spells”; in short, he is “the possessor of the magical power of the holy word.”​[844] So too in Norse mythology Odin is said to have owed his supremacy and his dominion over nature to his knowledge of the runes or magical names of all things in earth and heaven. This mystical lore he acquired as follows. The runic names of all things were scratched on the things themselves, then scraped off and mixed in a magical potion, which was compounded of honey and the blood of the slain Kvasir, the wisest of beings. A draught of this wonderful mead imparted to Odin not only the wisdom of Kvasir, but also a knowledge of all things, since he had swallowed their runic or mystical names along with the blood of the sage.​[845] {p242} Hence by the utterance of his spells he could heal sickness, deaden the swords of his enemies, loose himself from bonds, stop the flight of an arrow in mid-air, stay the raging of the flames, still the winds and lull the sea; and by graving