“Then Ra spake to the gods who were with him: ‘Let us voyage (khen) in our bark on the Nile; we are rejoiced, for our enemies lie on the ground.’ The (canal) in which the great god was has ever since been called the Water of Voyaging (Pe-khen).
“Then the enemies of Ra entered the water: they changed themselves into crocodiles and hippopotamuses. But Harmakhis voyaged on the water in his bark. When the crocodiles and hippopotamuses came up to him, they opened their jaws in order to destroy the Majesty of Harmakhis. Then came Hor-Beḥudet with his followers the blacksmiths (mesniu); each held an iron lance and chain in his hand, wherewith he smote the crocodiles and the hippopotamuses. Then three hundred and eighty-one of the enemy were brought to the spot, who had been killed in sight of the city of Edfu.
“And Harmakhis said to Hor-Beḥudet: ‘Let my image be in Southern Egypt, since there it is that the victory was gained’ (nekht âḥ). So the dwelling-place of Hor-Beḥudet (at Edfu) has ever since been called the Victorious (Nekht-âḥ). And Thoth said, when he had seen the enemy lying on the ground: ‘Glad are your hearts, O gods of heaven; glad are your hearts, O gods of [pg 222] earth! Horus the younger is come in peace; he has wrought wonders in his journey which he undertook in accordance with the Book of the Slaying of the Hippopotamus.’ Ever since was there (at Edfu) a forge (mesen) of Horus.[177]
“Hor-Beḥudet changed his form into that of a winged solar disc, which remained there above the prow of the bark of Ea. He took with him Nekheb, the goddess of the south, and Uazit, the goddess of the north, in the form of two serpents, in order to annihilate the enemy in their crocodile and hippopotamus bodies in every place to which he came, both in Southern and in Northern Egypt.
“Then the enemy fled before him, they turned their faces towards the south, their hearts sank within them from fear. But Hor-Beḥudet was behind them in the bark of Ra, with an iron lance and chain in his hand. With him were his followers, armed with weapons and chains. Then beheld he the enemy towards the south-east of Thebes in a plain two schœni in size.”
Here follows an account of the several battles which drove the enemies of Horus from place to place until eventually all Egypt passed under his sway. The first battle, that which took place south-east of Thebes, was at Aa-Zadmi, so called from the “wounds” inflicted on the foe, which henceforth bore the sacred name of Hât-Ra, “the House of Ra.” The second was at Neter-khadu, “the divine carnage,” to the north-east of [pg 223] Dendera; the third at Hebnu, near Minia, in the nome of the Gazelle; and others followed at Oxyrrhynchus or Beḥnesa, and Herakleopolis or Aḥnas, where a twofold Mesen or “Forge” was established. Then the foe were driven through the Delta and defeated at Zaru on its eastern frontier, whence they fled in ships down the Red Sea, but were finally overthrown at Shas-ḥer, near the later Berenikê, at the end of the road that led across the desert from the Nile.
Meanwhile, on the 7th of Tybi, their leader “Set had come forward and cried horribly, uttering curses upon the deed of Hor-Beḥudet in slaying the enemy. And Ra said to Thoth: ‘The horrible one cries loudly on account of what Hor-Beḥudet has done against him.’ Thoth replied to Ra: ‘Let the cries be called horrible from this day forward.’ Hor-Beḥudet fought long with Set; he flung his iron at him, he smote him to the ground in the city which henceforward was called Pa-Reḥeḥui (the House of the Twins).[178] When Hor-Beḥudet returned, he brought Set with him; his spear stuck in his neck, his chain was on his hand; the mace of Horus had smitten him, and closed his mouth. He brought him before his father Ra.
“Then Ra said to Thoth: ‘Let the companions of Set be given to Isis and Horus her son, that they may deal with them as they will.’... So Horus the son of Isis cut off the head of Set and his confederates before his [pg 224] father Ra and all the great Ennead. He carried him under his feet through the land, with the axe on his head and in his back.”
Set, however, was not slain. He transformed himself into a serpent, and the battles succeeded which ended with the victory at Shas-ḥer in the land of Uaua. After this “Harmakhis came in his bark and landed at Thes-Hor (the Throne of Horus or Edfu). And Thoth said: ‘The dispenser of rays who cometh forth from Ra has conquered the enemy in his form (of a winged disc); let him be named henceforward the dispenser of rays who cometh forth from the horizon.’ And Ra said to Thoth: ‘Bring this sun (the winged disk) to every place where I am, to the seats of the gods in Southern Egypt, to the seats of the gods in Northern Egypt, (to the seats of the gods) in the other world, that it may drive all evil from its neighbourhood.’ Thoth brought it accordingly to all places, as many as exist where there are gods and goddesses. It is the winged solar disc which is placed over the sanctuaries of all gods and goddesses in Egypt, since these sanctuaries are also that of Hor-Beḥudet.”[179]
The legend is a curious combination of the traditions relative to the conquest of the neolithic population by the Pharaonic Egyptians, of the myth of Osiris, of etymological speculations about the meaning of certain proper names, and of an attempt to explain the origin of the winged solar disc. We may gather from it that the disc was first used as an ornament at Edfu, and that it was believed, like the winged bulls of Assyria, to have the power of preventing the demons of evil from passing the door over which it was placed. Whether, however, this was one of the superstitions of the older people, or whether it was brought by the conquerors from their [pg 225] Babylonian home, is doubtful; perhaps the fact that the disc was a symbolic and architectural ornament, and was confined, so far as we know, to the temples of the official gods, points in the latter direction. It is otherwise with the temple relics mentioned in a legend which has been preserved on a granite shrine of the Ptolemaic epoch, that long served as a water-trough by the side of the well at El-Arîsh. The temple from which it originally came was that of At-Nebes, the sacred name of the city of Qesem or Goshen, now Saft el-Henna. The legend begins by describing the reign of Shu, who fortified At-Nebes against “the children of Apophis,” the Semites of “the red desert,” who came from the East “at nightfall upon the road of At-Nebes” to invade Egypt. Here he dwelt in his palace, and from hence he “ascended into heaven,” when he had grown old and the time had come for him to die. He was succeeded by his son Seb, who “discussed the history of the city with the gods who attended him, (and they told him) all that happened when the Majesty of Ra was in At-Nebes, the conflicts of the king Tum in this locality, the valour of the Majesty of Shu in this city ... (and the wonders that) the serpent-goddess Ankhet had done for Ra when he was with her; the victories of the Majesty of Shu, smiting the evil ones, when he placed her upon his brow. Then said the Majesty of Seb: ‘I also (will place) her upon my head, even as my father Shu did.’ Seb entered the temple of Aart (Lock of Hair) together with the gods that were with him; then he stretched forth his hand to take the casket in which (Ankhet) was; the serpent came forth and breathed its vapour on the Majesty of Seb, confounding him greatly; those who followed him fell dead, and his Majesty himself was burned in that day. When his Majesty had fled to the north of At-Nebes, with the fire of the cobra upon him, behold, when [pg 226] he came to the fields of henna, the pain of his burn was not yet assuaged, and the gods who followed him said unto him: ‘Come, let them take the lock (aart) of Ra which is there, when thy Majesty shall go to see it and its mystery, and his Majesty shall be healed (as soon as it is placed) upon thee.’ So the Majesty of Seb caused the magic lock of hair to be brought to Pa-Aart (the House of the Lock), for which was made that reliquary of hard stone which is hidden in the secret place of Pa-Aart, in the district of the divine lock of the god Ra; and behold the fire departed from the limbs of the Majesty of Seb. And many years afterwards, when this lock of hair was brought back to Pa-Aart in At-Nebes, and cast into the great lake of Pa-Aart, whose name is the Dwelling of Waves, in order that it might be purified, behold the lock became a crocodile; it flew to the water and became Sebek, the divine crocodile of At-Nebes.”[180]