Story: Isis the Scorpion Tamer

She felt faint. Her legs felt weak. Her feet screamed in pain. Her back ached, but yet she carried on. Isis felt as if her and Horus had been walking for year. It had been a long search for Osiris's remains and yet their journey yielded no results. Set was still after them and was relentless in his efforts to find them and imprison them so that they may not carry on with their search. Ra the sun god knew that Horus and Isis's lives were in trouble and thus he sent down seven scorpions to protect the queen and her son. Ra knew the scorpions would be fiercely protective of the mother and son, however he had failed to train them in how to serve as security. Therefore, Ra had sent down seven large arachnids that were powerful and unruly.

At first Isis was eternally grateful that Ra had taken the time to consider their safety and send the beasts to protect her and Horus. However, that feeling of gratefulness quickly turned into disdain. Isis and Horus came upon a small house and upon knocking on the door, they met the woman of the house, with whom they tried to convince to let them stay if only of one night. The woman refuted their request over and over and was joined at the door by her son who was around the same age as Horus. The scorpions saw the young boy and attacked him with their stingers. The mother wailed at the sight of her sons murder and Isis felt those cries deep in her heart, for she two knew the grief of losing a loved one. Isis sang a magical prayer over the boy and, at once, his breath was restored.

One of the guard scorpions

Isis apologized to the mother for the trouble they had caused, but in repayment for her sons life being reinstated, she allowed Isis and Horus to stay with them. The next day, Isis watched as Horus played outside the house with the boy. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the army of scorpions waiting and watching on the side of the cottage. She watched as they inched closer and closer to the two boys until finally, once lunged and stung Horus dead. Isis wailed and screamed as she ran outside to her fallen child. She tried to sing her magical prayer but alas it was of no use. She prayed to Ra to save her son since it was his doing that the scorpions were so wild and untrainable Ra, hearing her prayers, restored Horus and Isis embraced him tightly.

Isis had decided she had enough of the scorpions and their disorderly behavior. The next day she went outside and went to where the scorpions lay sleeping. She conjured a magical whip and then awoke the scorpions with a loud crack. They awoke at once with their stingers ready but Isis anticipated this and cracked the whip on one of the scorpions tails. It shrieked and at the sound of its cries, the other scorpions put their stingers down and held close to the ground, lest they upset Isis and suffer the same consequence. Within a few weeks, Isis had the scorpions trained to obey her every command. They served as great protectors against all the evils that Set tried to send her and Horus's way. Isis felt safe to continue her journey with her son in search of her dear husband Osiris's remains.

Isis and her son Horus

Bibliography:
Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907).

Author's Note:
I chose to re-write two stories and combine them together with my own twist at the end. I combined The Death of Osiris with The Journey of Isis since the two stories flowed together so well. I liked that Isis was strong and could defend herself and her son so I wanted to channel that strength all the way to the end of the story. It made more sense in my mind that she was able to train the scorpions to help her instead of them being rouge and un controllable. I tried to keep the tone of my story similar to that of the original story. I also changed the timeline so that Horus was already born and somewhat older when Isis and him stumble upon the house of the woman and her son. I felt like it made it more relatable to Isis when the scorpion stung the woman's boy because she would have had a son around that age.