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. 

Reading Notes: Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories Part B

I am continuing on with my reading of Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories.

The story of the Two Brothers is such a sad one. The fact that the older brother would believe his devious wife over the younger brother who helped him so much in the fields is beyond me. I appreciate that the sun god Ra was able to separate them and show Anpu that Bata was telling the truth. I'm also noticing a trend in the use of the crocodile as a type of justice symbol. In the story of the Pharaoh and the scribe and now here between the two feuding brothers, the crocodile seems to be the constant fact when there is a debate of right and wrong or a needing of justice.

It frustrated me that the girl wife that was given to Bata by the gods decided not to listen when Bata asked her to stay in doors so that harm would not befall her. In this section again I am seeing parallels of other stories with how the lock of the girl wife's hair made its way to the kings washing area. The smell was so sweet and intoxicating just like the hair was of the maidens after Isis had finished braiding it. I really like how the story of the brothers came full circle with Bata being brought back to life with the help of a seed and some water. Just like how in the beginning seeds seemed to be a factor in his falling out with his brother Anpu.

For the life of me I cannot understand why the girl wife keeps trying to kill Bata. First she discloses to the king that he as in the highest bloom on the tree, then she says she wants to eat the liver of the sacred cow which is actually Bata in disguise. She was created for Bata by Ra but it seems that she has other plans in mind. That would be a fun story to tell in a modern sense; like a bride whose hand was given to a man by her father but she gives him so much grief to try and keep him from going through with it.

The story of king Nefer-Ka-ptah and The Book of Thoth was entertaining; I really liked the part where he had to face off against the snake that was immortal because it made me think about how Hercules had to get creative when he wanted to kill the Hydra. With the Hydra, every time Hercules cut off one head, two would grow in its place, while with the snake, the head and body just kept coming back together as if they were magnetic.

Part of the Book of Thoth

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

Reading Notes: Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories

This week, I chose to read Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories. I had a hard time at first keeping up with all the different names for the god Ra but eventually caught on. Immediately, I noticed the similarities between both the Egyptian gods, the Roman gods, the Greek gods, and even the Christian god. Just like how the Christians speak of three gods in one and the trinity, Ra has 3 different names; although, his correlated with the placement of the sun in the sky.

Ra

I was skeptical when I was reading the story about the reveal of Ra's secret name. Most of me was convinced that Isis was going to betray Ra in someway and instead of healing him she was going to let him die and use the power of his secret name to become the new ruler of all the gods. That could be an interesting, dark twist to the plot line to take it in that direction. I also was bummed in that story that we didn't get to know what the actual secret name for Ra was. However, it did keep the master and intrigue going.

One section of the story confused me a lot. In The Journey of Isis, Ra sent the seven scorpions to be her protectors yet she has no control over them and they seem to do more harm then good! They first bite the child of the woman who would not let Isis stay with her, which at first I understood. However, they go on to bite Horus, Isis's son, and she being unable to bring him back to life, has to summon the power of Ra to restore him. The scorpions seem to have backfired as a means to protect in this story.

Isis's protector

The irony in the fact that Osiris was trapped in the box he made was not lost on me. Nor was the fact that this is obviously the story behind the mummification of Pharaohs and the amount of effort and money they put into the coffins that encompassed them after they died.

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