were the spirits of men and women who died violent or premature deaths, or who had left certain duties undone, and even youths or maidens who had loved but who had been snatched away before they had known happiness. In an exorcism various spirits are addressed individually:
Whether thou art a ghost unburied,
Or a ghost that none careth for,
Or a ghost with none to make offerings to it.
Or a ghost that hath none to pour libations to it,
Or a ghost that hath no prosperity.
Other phantoms who can obtain no rest are:
He that lieth in a ditch….
He that no grave covereth…
He that lieth uncovered,
Whose head is uncovered with dust,
The king’s son that lieth in the desert,
Or in the ruins,
The hero whom they have slain with the sword.
And again:
He that hath died of hunger in prison,
He that hath died of thirst in prison,
The hungry man who in his hunger hath not smelt the smell of food,
He whom the bank of a river hath made to perish,
He that hath died in the desert or marshes,
He that a storm hath overwhelmed in the desert,
The Night-wraith that hath no husband,
The Night-fiend that hath no wife,[6]
He that hath posterity and he that hath none.
If the spirit of the dead man be forgotten and no offerings were made at the tomb, hunger and thirst would compel it to come forth from its abode in the Underworld to seek the nourishment of which it has been deprived, and, according to the old proverb, since a hungry man is an angry man it roams furiously to and fro and greedily devours whatsoever it may. “If it found a luckless man who had wandered far from his fellows into haunted places, it fastened upon him, plaguing and tormenting him until such time as a priest should drive it away with excorcism.” This is clear from two tablets which have been translated as follows:
