Eight Arms and the Mask

This is the face of the waters which the interpretatio ugaritica hath presented to us. Prince Yamm, Judge Nahar, the sea, the rivers, the god of the waters of the earth, is a beast and a tyrant, who would slay Prince Hadad, the rider upon the clouds, who directs the rain and the dew. Among those who he sent forth from the depths of the seas to torment Hadad, Hadad’s sworn sister Anat, and their friend Athtartu was a great serpent with many heads, Lotan, the river and its delta made horribly manifest. Aarne-Thompson-Uther index type 934K speaks of a folktale that has spread across certain parts of Europe, mostly in the broad Germanic-speaking areas of diffusion and their immediate contact. It tells us of the waters, a lake or a stream, which are hungry for human life. Once per year, perhaps, or perhaps less consistently. They set forth a hue and cry, “The hour cometh but not the man!” until their chosen victim runs into the water to be taken and devoured. Or perhaps they simply strike

 "To the best of my recollection, it said, 'The great sin of the goddess was that she did not hate, and took that seriously. Even Erissa the merciful has her Natyrsa side, who if not an eager slayer of the vomitus of unreality, at the least would not lift a finger to aid any creature of the outer void or their corrupted servants. When she was confronted with the squalling hideous thing, the overt abomination, the oozing, gushing impurity of her flayed wings, she did not stamp on it and crush it and finish the unfinished task of Arkat, she did not take the damned thing and annihilate it, she looked the chiropteran vileness in two of her eyes and said, "You're hurt and bleeding, like me. What do you say we stick together?"'  'Nor was this even the prelude to an absorption of the shredded, ragged wings of her youth! Nay, she was honest and kept her word and the Bat remained herself, a thing apart from her origin point, given an appalling further leash on lif