to make him merry.  When Rauser objected to this and told them that his wife lay ill inside the house, they replied, “Let us see her, for we know how to help her”; so he said to them and to Khnemu who was with them, “Enter in,” and they did so, and they went to the room wherein Rut-tetet lay.  Isis, Nephthys, and Heqet assisted in bringing the three boys into the world.  Meskhenet prophesied for each of them sovereignty over the land, and Khnemu bestowed health upon their bodies.  After the birth of the three boys, the four goddesses and Khnemu went outside the house, and told Rauser to rejoice because his wife Rut-tetet had given him three children.  Rauser said, “My Ladies, what can I do for you in return for this?” Having apparently nothing else to give them, he begged them to have barley brought from his granary, so that they might take it away as a gift to their own granaries; they agreed, and the god Khnemu brought the barley.  So the goddesses set out to go to the place whence they had come.

[Footnote 1:  Isis and Nephthys were the daughters of Keb and Nut, and sisters of Osiris and Set; the former was the mother of Horus, and the latter of Anubis.]

[Footnote 2:  A goddess who presided over the birth of children.]

[Footnote 3:  A very ancient Frog-goddess, who was associated with generation and birth.]

[Footnote 4:  A god who assisted at the creation of the world, and who fashioned the bodies of men and women.]

When they had arrived there Isis said to her companions:  “How is it that we who went to Rut-tetet [by the command of Ra] have worked no wonder for the children which we could have announced to their father, who allowed us to depart [without begging a boon]?” So they made divine crowns such as belonged to the Lord (i.e. King), life, strength, health [be to him!], and they hid them in the barley.  Then they sent rain and storm through the heavens, and they went back to the house of Rauser, apparently carrying the barley with them, and said to him, “Let the barley abide in a sealed room until we dance our way back to the north.”  So they put the barley in a sealed room.  After Rut-tetet had kept herself secluded for fourteen days, she said to one of her handmaidens, “Is the house all ready?” and the handmaiden told her that it was provided with everything except jars of barley drink, which had not been brought.  Rut-tetet then asked why they had not been brought, and the handmaiden replied in words that seem to mean that there was no barley in the house except that which belonged to the dancing goddesses, and that that was in a chamber which had been sealed with their seal.  Rut-tetet then told her to go and fetch some of the barley, for she was quite certain that when her husband Rauser returned he would make good what she took.  Thereupon the handmaiden went to the chamber, and broke it open, and she heard in it loud cries and shouts, and the sounds of music and singing and dancing, and all the