Tales of Ancient Egypt Read online

  ‘How could I stay away from you when I was free to come?’ murmured Isis in the voice of Nephthys. ‘Ah, my dear lord, did you not know that I had been kept away by the wicked magic of my sister Isis?’

  Now Set knew very well that Nephthys had left him by her own wish, and he had small faith in her excuses. But as she stood there in the moonlight, so slim and beautiful, with her lovely eyes shining with love, Set forgot all his cunning and wished only to have Nephthys as his wife once more.

  ‘Come back to me indeed,’ he said, ‘and I will forgive you all that is past, and make you my Queen.’

  ‘First,’ said the supposed Nephthys, ‘you must swear an oath before all the gods in council that my son shall be Pharaoh of Egypt as soon as the time comes for him to rule this land – and that you will do him no harm nor plot anything against him unless he himself should attack you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’ll promise that Anubis shall succeed me as Pharaoh,’ exclaimed Set impatiently, moving to embrace her.

  ‘You must not touch me,’ she said, drawing back, ‘until you have sworn the oath.’

  Nor would she let Set embrace her, though she sat by his side until the dawn came, drinking the rich red wine of the Delta – or seeing that he drank it – and singing him sweet love-songs.

  In the morning she let him take her arm to support his drunken steps to the place on the island where the council of the gods was to be held. And at her prompting he swore to her before them all this oath:

  ‘I swear by Him who sleeps at Philae that your son shall be Pharaoh of Egypt as soon as the time comes for him to rule this land, and that I will do him no harm nor plot anything against him unless he himself should attack me or try to take my throne.’

  As soon as the oath was sworn, Isis laughed with the sweet, silvery laugh like the tinkling of the bells on the sistrum which she usually carried. And as she laughed, her face changed with her voice, she took off the head-dress of Nephthys, and all could see that it was indeed Isis to whom the drunken Set had sworn his oath.

  ‘What further need the gods in council to declare, except that Set must keep the oath which he has sworn by Him who sleeps at Philae?’ she cried. ‘I am Isis, and he has sworn that my son, my only son, Horus, is the rightful Pharaoh of Egypt!’

  Then all the gods laughed at the trick Isis had played, and even Ra’s brow grew bright – for since Set had sworn, there was no more to be said. And all the gods knew in their hearts that Horus was the rightful king.

  But Set bellowed with rage like a mad hippopotamus, and cried in a voice which shook the hills like thunder: ‘Not so easily shall Horus win my kingdom! When he is grown, let him come against me, and I will slay him and feast on his flesh, and become King indeed!’

  Then he went away into the deserts of the south above the First Cataract with all his followers, and there was peace in Egypt for a while.

  But all knew that the great war was to come. And, whether in the Duat or after his spirit returned to his body on the island of Chemmis, Horus was being trained every day to be the Avenger of Osiris.

  Many times Osiris himself came from the Duat to instruct his son. And one day he said to Horus, ‘Tell me, my son, what is the noblest thing a man can do?’

  ‘Avenge his father and his mother for the evil done to them,’ answered Horus.

  ‘And what creature do you think most useful to take into battle with you?’

  ‘A horse,’ was the prompt answer.

  ‘Would not a lion be of greater assistance?’ asked Osiris.

  ‘It would if a man needed assistance,’ replied Horus. ‘But a horse would be far more useful for cutting off an enemy’s flight and slaying him.’

  ‘Now, my son,’ said Osiris solemnly, ‘I perceive that your training is complete and the time has come for you to lead your followers into battle against Set.’

  Then Osiris returned into the Duat, for in the living world he could not yet fight against Set. But Horus armed himself for the battle, gathered together his followers, and sought the aid of Harmachis, the god of the rising sun, the brother of Osiris and Set, who so far had played no part in the struggle for the rule of Egypt.

  But Set was watching all that Horus did, and he knew that the time had come when his oath to Isis bound him no longer. So he took upon himself the shape of a black pig – black as a thunder-cloud, fierce to look at, with tusks to strike terror into the bravest heart. He hid himself in the reeds where the island of Chemmis had come to rest in the Delta, near where in after days the city of Buto was to arise in honour of the goddess who had protected the infant Horus.

  Harmachis and Horus met there alone together to make their plans, and Harmachis said: ‘Let me speak a great spell and gaze into your eyes that are as bright as the midday sun. There I may see all that Set is planning against us, and where his followers lie in wait to attack us.’

  So he spoke the spells and the eyes of Horus began to shine like the sun at noontide, and Harmachis of the rising sun gazed into them. At first they were like the Great Green Sea, clouded like lapis lazuli; but soon they began to grow clear like glass, and Harmachis knew that in a moment he would see through them to the very ends of the earth.

  But suddenly the great black pig charged squealing out of the reeds.

  ‘Beware of the black pig!’ cried Harmachis. ‘Never have I seen one so big or fierce!’

  Horus turned and looked: for the two gods were off their guard and neither realized that it was no ordinary pig but Set the Evil, and they were not prepared against his magic.

  Then Set aimed a blow of fire like a lightning flash at the eyes of Horus. And Horus covered his eyes with his hands crying, ‘It is Set! And he has smitten me in the eyes with fire!’

  But when Harmachis turned, Set the black pig had gone, and he could do no more than utter a curse which rested upon all pigs ever after and on all who touched them – save only on the night of the full Moon when black pigs were sacrificed to Horus.

  Meanwhile the eyes of Horus were darkened for a little while as the sun is darkened when the thunderclouds speed over the Delta in the time of rain. But soon they grew bright once more and he set out in the boat of Harmachis up the Nile to the land of Upper Egypt where the sky is always blue.

  On the way they fought several battles with the forces of Set, the evil men who worshipped him and did not follow the teachings of the good god Osiris. Their first outpost was near Memphis where the Delta ends. Here Horus turned himself into a great winged disc that glowed like a ball of fire, with wings on either side like the colours of the sky at sunset.

  ‘Your eyes shall not see, and your minds shall be darkened likewise!’ he cried. And at once as each man looked at his neighbour, he saw a stranger; and when any of them spoke, he seemed to hear a foreign tongue.

  Then the first army of Set cried out, ‘The enemy has come amongst us in disguise!’ and they fell upon each other and slew and slew until none were left alive.

  Horus flew back to Harmachis, and when he had taken on his own shape once more, Harmachis embraced him and gave him a draught of wine mixed with water – and in remembrance of that battle libations of wine and water were poured to Horus ever after.

  Up the river sailed the boat of Harmachis, and presently the next wave of the enemy came against them, wearing the forms of crocodiles and hippopotami – ready to attack both on the banks of the Nile and in the water.

  But Horus was prepared for them. Among his followers were many skilled smiths and metal-workers, and Horus had instructed them how to make weapons of iron tempered with many a spell. As the crocodiles and hippopotami drew near with open mouths, the smiths cast chains into the water so that the fierce beasts entangled their legs and could be dragged towards the boats that followed the boat of Harmachis. And when they were near enough the smiths slew them with their spears, the iron points of which could pierce the thickest hide.

  Then Horus and Har
machis changed themselves into great hawks which swooped down, one on the left bank of the river, and one on the right, and tore in pieces with their mighty talons all the followers of Set, whether they were in human form or in the guise of hippopotamus or crocodile.

  So that war raged up and down the Nile, and many battles were fought in which Horus and his allies were victorious. At last Set himself came out against the boat of Harmachis, Set wearing the form of a monster with a hideous, animal head – a head that seemed to have been half-decayed, so that the accounts of the battle called Set ‘The Stinking Head’.

  The fight was long and terrible, but in the end Harmachis flung Set to the ground, smashing his face with his iron mace, bound him in chains, and brought him before the gods in council.

  Then Ra said, ‘Hand him over for punishment to Horus the son of Isis, and let them do unto him even as he did to Osiris.’

  All the gods cried ‘Yes!’ to this. Thereupon Horus drew his sword and smote off the Stinking Head. Then he dragged the body of Set up and down Egypt, and at last cut him into fourteen pieces even as Set had torn the body of Osiris.

  Yet the Evil One was not to be slain so easily. Before the sword of Horus fell, his wicked spirit had escaped from his body, imprisoning in it that of one of his chosen followers. And the spirit of Set entered into a poisonous black snake which crept away into a hole in the river bank.

  Meanwhile Harmachis took upon himself the form of a mighty lion with a man’s head, the head of a great Pharaoh of Egypt. His likeness is cut in stone at Giza, and the Greeks, when they came to Egypt thousands of years later, called it the Sphinx. In this shape he raged up and down the land seeking out the followers of Set and slaying them with his mighty claws, no matter what disguise they took upon themselves.

  For a little while it seemed that the war was over. But wise Thoth, looking through the distance as only he could, spoke to Horus saying: ‘Son of Isis, the last battle is yet to be fought, even in this life. For Set is not dead. His spirit escaped ere ever you smashed the Stinking Head, and entered into a serpent. Now that cursed reptile has crept away into the desert far to the south, and Set is gathering allies and marching up the river to attack Egypt once more. Yet be of good heart, for the last battle shall be fought at Edfu, and there a temple shall be raised in honour of your victory that time shall not destroy.’

  Then Horus gathered his forces once more and sailed up the Nile past Thebes, past Edfu itself, until he came to the island of Elephantinē. And there on the island stood Set himself in the form of a gigantic red hippopotamus. Opening his mouth he uttered a terrible curse:

  ‘Let there come a raging tempest and a mighty flood against my enemies!’ he cried, and his voice rolled in thunder down the valley of the Nile.

  Then darkness fell upon the land, and a huge wave came roaring down from the First Cataract. It caught the fleet of Horus and swept it back down the river. Yet the boat in which Horus stood shone brightly through the darkness, and came to rest at Edfu not many miles below Elephantinē.

  Set had been following, and now he paused, a vast red hippopotamus straddling the whole stream of the Nile. Against him Horus came sailing in his golden boat, wearing the likeness of a handsome youth twelve feet in height and holding ready a harpoon thirty feet long.

  Set opened his mighty jaws to destroy Horus and his boat. But Horus cast his harpoon with such strong and deadly aim that it crashed through the roof of Set’s mouth and deep into the brain beyond. And that one blow slew Set the Wicked One, the enemy of gods and men – and the red hippopotamus sank dead into the Nile at Edfu.

  With the death of Set the darkness passed from the earth, and the people of Edfu came out to welcome Horus the Avenger and lead him to his shrine where the great temple now stands. And they sang the song of praise which the priests were to chant in after years when the great Festival of Horus was held annually at Edfu.

  ‘Rejoice, dwellers in Edfu! The great god Horus, the lord of the heavens, has struck down the enemy of Osiris, he has avenged the death of his father! Eat the flesh of the vanquished, drink the blood of the red hippopotamus, burn his bones with fire! Let him be cut in pieces, and the scraps be given to the cats, and the offal cast to the reptiles!

  ‘Glory to Horus of the mighty blow, the wielder of the harpoon, the brave one, the slayer of Set, the only son of Osiris, Horus of Edfu, Horus the Avenger!’

  So there was peace in Egypt, and Horus reigned as Pharaoh for many hundreds of years, until the days when the great gods dwelt on earth were ended. Yet each Pharaoh who came after him, though but a man in body and in length of days, held the spirit of a god and was worshipped as such by his people. And the Egyptians embalmed the bodies of their dead kings and hid them away in mighty pyramids and deep tombs below the Valley of Kings at Western Thebes. For they knew that the day would come when Osiris and Horus would return to earth and fight the last and greatest battle against Set, and overcome him for ever. And that then all the dead who had lived virtuous lives and won through to the Duat, would return to earth with Osiris, and re-inhabit their bodies, and dwell for ever in an Egypt purged of all wickedness – a fit home for the blessed.

  Khnemu of the Nile

  Horus was the last of the great gods to reign as Pharaoh in Egypt, and when he had left the earth to ride across the sky with Ra in the Boat of the Sun, or visit his father Osiris in the Duat, the Land of the Dead, mortal men ruled in his place.

  Every Pharaoh was, in spirit at least, the actual child of a god and was worshipped by his people as a god himself and credited with divine powers – even if sometimes he made mistakes like an ordinary mortal.

  In the very early days of historical Egypt the Upper Kingdom and the Lower Kingdom were separate, and often at war with each other – and from this fact may have grown the myths of the battles between Set and Horus.

  About the year 3200, however, the Pharaoh Menes united the Two Lands and combined the two sacred crowns into one, the ‘Pschent’ or Double Crown worn by all kings of Egypt down to the days of Cleopatra.

  As every Pharaoh was thought of as a god, many stories grew up about their dealings with the gods, and one of the earliest concerned the great Zoser who lived about five hundred years after Menes had united the Two Lands.

  It was Zoser who caused the first great pyramid to be built, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara on the edge of the desert above Memphis which stands to this day. His friend and adviser Imhotep, the world’s first great architect, designed the pyramid for him and with it the great mile-long walk round the sanctuary at its foot, and in after days he too was worshipped as a god by the Egyptians.

  Although Zoser had brought many blessings to the land, the god whom he had striven most to honour was himself, and instead of building temples and shrines to Ra or Thoth or Osiris, he had thought only of making his own great sanctuary and pyramid.

  In the tenth year of his reign the Nile did not rise as usual. The fields by the riverside in Upper Egypt, and the wide, flat plains of the Delta in Lower Egypt were not flooded and left covered with the rich mud in which wheat and barley grew so abundantly, and without which they would not grow at all.

  At first this did not trouble the people greatly. The Nile was not always kind to them: sometimes there was a very small Inundation indeed, and occasionally the floods rose so high that houses and temples on either side were flooded. And, by the wisdom of Imhotep, Pharaoh had built barns and granaries and stored much grain in case such a bad year should come.

  But when next year the Nile again did not rise when the time of the Inundation was due, there were some murmurs, and bread was short that winter.

  In all there were seven lean years in Egypt, and by the end of the seventh year starvation was everywhere in the land. No corn grew, the fruits dried up, the cattle grew thin and died of hunger. Every man robbed his neighbour when he could. The strong stole from the weak; old men and children were left to die; even the young grew so we
ak that they could scarcely put one foot before the other. The temples were shut up, for there was nothing to offer on the altars of the gods.

  Then the people cried to Pharoah, the god on earth, to save them. They gathered outside his palace in Memphis, praying him to bring back the yearly Inundation and save them all from death.

  Zoser was in despair for, god though he knew himself to be, he could not cause the Nile to rise, and all his prayers and incantations and sacrifices to the Nine Gods of Memphis were of no avail.

  In despair he sent for Imhotep the wise: Imhotep, who, men said, must be the son of Ptah himself, Ptah the architect of the gods whose shrine was at Memphis, and said to him, ‘Tell me what to do. Where is the secret birthplace of the Nile? Which god directs the flood? To what god must I turn?’

  Then said Imhotep the wise: ‘O Pharaoh – life, health, strength be to you! – I cannot answer this out of my own wisdom. But let me journey to Thebes to seek guidance from Thoth in whom is all knowledge. In the House of Life at Thebes are stored the sacred books called the Souls of Ra: it may be that Thoth the god of wisdom will guide me and show me an answer to your question written therein.’

  So Imhotep journeyed with all haste up the Nile to Thebes. And Thoth granted his prayer, so that before long he was able to return in triumph to Zoser, before whom he fell down in worship, saying: ‘O Pharaoh – life, health, strength be to you! – Thoth has shown me all and instructed me in the hidden wisdom of our ancestors and the spells of the magicians who wrote in ancient days about the Inundation of the Nile.

  ‘Harken to their wisdom, O Pharaoh! There lies in the Nile far to the south an island on which shall one day stand a great temple and a famous city. That island is called Elephantinē, and is the Beginning of the Beginning: for it was the first mound of dry land to rise out of the waters of Nun when Ra called the world into being, and on it he stood when he spoke the words of power and the First Name that made all things. There is a cave beneath the rock on which Elephantinē is raised above the waters of the Nile which flow on either side of it. It is called “The Fountain of Life”; it is also called “The Two Caverns” since it has two narrow mouths leading out beneath the surface of the Nile on either side. This is the mother that feeds all Egypt. This cave is the couch of the Nile; this is the birthplace of the River of Egypt. Here each year he retires and is reborn in strength. Hence he rushes out through the Two Caverns and floods all the land, so that his waters rise to forty feet in height at Elephantinē and to ten where they draw near the Great Green Sea. The god who dwells there is Khnemu: you have neglected him too long, and so have the people of Egypt.’