Lugalbandi in the Mountain Cave
The first thing that strikes me is how the writer refers to "ancient days." What is ancient for ancient Sumerians? The times when gods lived on earth and when men lived for a great period of time.
This story starts out telling of Enmerkar's military campaign against the legendary king of Arrata. Yes, that would be En-sughir-ana. But, I'm only assuming so, because this story doesn't use his name explicitly. But before a confrontation is had, one of Enmerkar's commander's becomes very ill. That would be Lugalbandi. They leave him in a cave to be alone. He prays and is told in a dream to sacrifice animals, from which the Sumerian pantheon dines on his sacrifice the next day.
I wish I had more time to write a more thorough explanation of all that is happening because it is just so very interesting. But below I've just listed a few points of particular interest.
Firstly the priesthood is made mention of. Each one in the army on the outset of the military campaign gave each of his fellow "the sign." The sign is cryptically referred to and not much else is said of what the sign was.
A few quotes:
"His eyes--irrigation ditches because they are flooding with water."
Referring to Lugalbandi's dream and subsequently dreams in general we get my favorite line of the story: "To the liar it talks in lies, to the truthful it speaks in truths. It can make one man happy, it can make another man sing, but it is the closed tablet basket of the gods."
Dreams are the tablet baskets of the gods. I love Sumerian literature.