and pass into hers.”  Then Ra hid himself from the gods, and for a season his throne in the Boat of Millions of Years was empty.  When the time came for the heart of the god to pass into Isis, the goddess said to Horus, her son, “The great god shall bind himself by an oath to give us his two eyes (i.e. the sun and the moon).”  When the great god had yielded up his name Isis pronounced the following spell:  “Flow poison, come out of Ra.  Eye of Horus, come out of the god, and sparkle as thou comest through his mouth.  I am the worker.  I make the poison to fall on the ground.  The poison is conquered.  Truly the name of the great god hath been taken from him.  Ra liveth!  The poison dieth!  If the poison live Ra shall die.”  These were the words which Isis spoke, Isis the great lady, the Queen of the gods, who knew Ra by his own name.

[Footnote 1:  An ancient Cow-goddess of heaven.]

[Footnote 2:  A form of Amen-Ra.]

In late times magicians used to write the above Legend on papyrus above figures of Temu and Heru-Hekenu, who gave Ra his secret name, and over figures of Isis and Horus, and sell the rolls as charms against snake bites.

          THE LEGEND OF HORUS OF BEHUTET AND THE WINGED DISK

The text of this Legend is cut in hieroglyphs on the walls of the temple of Edfu, in Upper Egypt, and some of the incidents described in it are illustrated by large bas-reliefs.  The form of the Legend here given dates from the Ptolemaic Period, but the subject matter is some thousands of years older.  The great historical fact underlying the Legend is the Conquest of Egypt by some very early king who invaded Egypt from the south, and who succeeded in conquering every part of it, even the northern part of the Delta.  The events described are supposed to have taken place whilst Ra was still reigning on the earth.  The Legend states that in the three hundred and sixty-third year of the reign of Ra-Harmakhis, the ever living, His Majesty was in Ta-sti (i.e. the Land of the Bow, or Nubia) with his soldiers; the enemy had reviled him, and for this reason the land is called “Uauatet” to this day.  From Nubia Ra sailed down the river to Apollinopolis (Edfu), and Heru-Behutet, or Horus of Edfu, was with him.  On arriving there Horus told Ra that the enemy were plotting against him, and Ra told him to go out and slay them.  Horus took the form of a great winged disk, which flew up into the air and pursued the enemy, and it attacked them with such terrific force that they could neither see nor hear, and they fell upon each other, and slew each other, and in a moment not a single foe was left alive.  Then Horus returned to the Boat of Ra-Harmakhis, in the form of the winged disk which shone with many colours, and said, “Advance, O Ra, and look upon thine enemies who are lying under thee in this land.”  Ra set out on the journey, taking with him the goddess Ashtoreth, and he saw his enemies lying on the ground, each of them being