|| An Egyptian legend ||
According to the Egyptian legend, the kingdom of Egypt was ruled by the great king of Osiris. Osiris, Set and their other brothers and sisters, having born as humans children to Gods, become demi-gods although there is no direct reference that any of them had any supernatural powers.
Osiris was a kind and just king who first civilized the barbarians and introduced agriculture and a justice system, thus bringing law and order to the place. The people also loved him.
But, Osiris had an enemy who wanted his kingdom and the power. That was none other than his own brother, Set. He plotted with Aso, the queen of Ethiopia, and seventy-two others to get rid of his brother.
Proceeding with his plan, Set secretly measured the king’s body after he slept due to a potion mixed in the food.
Then Set had gotten a marvellous chest made with the same dimensions. The chest was made of gold and richly fashioned and adorned with ornaments like rubies and sapphires.
After this was done, he invited his fellow-conspirators and his brother, the king, to a great feast.
Isis, the Queen and wife of Osiris, had frequently warned him about Set. But the unsuspecting king, who would only see good in people, went ahead to the banquet.
When the feast was over Set had the beautiful chest brought into the banquet-hall, and said that whoever fit exactly in the chest can have it.
One after another the guests admired the chest and lay down in it, but it fitted none of them. When it was Osiris’s turn, the king laid himself down in rich chest.
In a moment the conspirators had nailed down the lid, pouring boiling lead over it so that even air couldn’t get out. This was said to be the first ever instance of mummification.
Then they set the coffin adrift on the Nile.
Isis got to know the news through some spies in Set’s court. She was heart-broken and cut off a lock of her hair and put on mourning apparel.
The Egyptians then believed that the the dead cannot rest till their bodies have been buried with funeral rites, so she set out to find the corpse of her husband.
She did not want Set to find out that she knew, so she left her child, Horus, in protective custody in the kingdom, and set out in disguise. For a long time she asked every man and woman she met whether they had seen the richly decorated chest.
Finally some children who played by the Nile were able to tell her that the chest had been brought to the mouth of the Nile by Set and his accomplices.
Then she inquired further and got to know that the chest had washed up the shore of Byblos (the current Lebanon) It was flung by the waves into a small Tamarisk tree, which miraculously grew tall and beautiful.
The king of the land, having spotted the magnificent tree, had it cut down and used its trunk as a pillar to support the roof of his palace.
The chest was still inside the hollow of its trunk and was not discovered in the process.
Once Isis heard this information, she went to palace and seated herself next to the royal fountain.
She would talk to no one except the queen’s maidens. When the queen’s maidens approached her, she braided their hair and perfumed their body with her breath, which was more pleasant than any flower.
Queen Astarte enquired her maidens about the sweet perfume unlike anything she ever smelled before and got to know of the woman by the fountain.
But she did not know that the woman was actually Isis, the queen of the land, in disguise.
Isis was employed in the queen’s quarters.
Isis looked after the queen’s children. At night, she would turn into a swallow and sing bitterly about the loss of her husband.
When the queen asked for what reward she might like for her service, Isis insisted that she would have nothing but the pillar that supported the roof.
Finally, the tree trunk was handed to her. Isis then revealed herself and the gold chest was extracted from the tree trunk.
She then sailed back to Egypt with the chest and mourned over her husband.
The tree trunk that remained behind, continued to be worshipped in Byblos.
Meanwhile, word reached Set that the chest was brought back to Egypt. He had the chest stolen and in his rage, cut Osiris’s body into fourteen pieces and had them strewn all over Egypt.
Isis, learned of this act and set out once more on the Nile on a boat made of papyrus-reeds. It was said that crocodiles avoided boats made of papyrus reeds because they thought the boat belonged to the Gods and Goddesses.
Isis travelled across the land. Wherever she found a piece of her husband’s corpse, she conducted proper funeral rites and built a shrine to mark the spot.
For this reason, many tombs of Osiris can be found in Egypt.
Once all the rites had been completed thanks to Isis, Osiris moved on to afterlife. There he continued to reign as the King of the Dead.
When Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, had reached manhood, he sought to avenge his father. Many battles were fought between them. There were wins and losses in equal measure.
It is said that they are still fighting to this day, Horus, the protector and God of Sky on one side and Set, the destroyer and the god of war and storms on the other. Egyptian Pharoahs often invoked the name of Horus before going into war.
Legend says that once Horus defeats Set, Osiris would return to rule Egypt one day.
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