Illuyanka

A serpent, not a name

Illuyanka is the Hittite common noun for "serpent" or "dragon"; the being in the myth is simply "the serpent". It appears in the two versions of the Illuyanka tales (CTH 321), which a priest of Nerik tells in connection with the Purulli festival.

Two defeats of the Storm-god

In both versions the serpent wins the first fight. In the first version it is then lured out of its hole with its children by the goddess Inara's lavish feast; they gorge themselves until they cannot squeeze back in, and the mortal Hupašiya ties them up for the Storm-god to kill. In the second version the serpent takes the Storm-god's heart and eyes, and gives them back only as a gift to the Storm-god's son, who has married the serpent's daughter; the restored Storm-god then kills the serpent at sea, and his son with it.

What it represents

Scholars have read Illuyanka as a figure of chaotic waters or of the forces that hold back spring growth, fitting the Purulli festival's place in the agricultural year, but the text itself offers no allegory. It is one of the oldest written examples of the storm-god's serpent enemy, a figure found from Ugarit's Litan to Norse Jörmungandr.