And Horus looked; neither did he know Set in this strange form, and thought it was a wild boar from the thickets of the North Country. Thus he was off his guard and unprotected against his enemy.
Then Set aimed a blow of fire at the eye of Horus, and Horus shouted aloud with the pain of the fire, and raged furiously, and cried, "It is Set, and he has smitten me with fire on the eyes."
But Set was no longer there, for he had conveyed himself away, and the Black Pig was seen no more. And Ra cursed the pig because of Set, and said, "Let the pig be an abomination to Horus." And to this day men sacrifice the pig when the Moon is at the full, because Set, the enemy of Horus, and the murderer of Osiris, took its form in order to injure the blue-eyed God. And for this reason also swineherds are unclean throughout the land of Egypt; never may they enter the temples and sacrifice to the Gods, and their sons and daughters may not marry with the worshippers of the Gods.
And when the eyes of Horus were healed, Ra gave to him the city of Pé, and he gave to him two divine brethren in the city of Pé, and two divine brethren in the city of Nekhen to be with him as everlasting judges. Then was the heart of Horus glad and he rejoiced, and at the joy of Horus the earth blossomed, and thunderclouds and rain were blotted out.
VIII
THE BATTLES OF HORUS
It was in the three hundred and sixty-third year of the reign of the God Ra-Horakhti upon earth that the great war happened between Horus and Set.
The Majesty of the God Ra, whom men call Ra-Horakhti also, was in Nubia with his army, a great and innumerable multitude of soldiers, footmen and horsemen, archers and chariots. He came in his Boat upon the river; the prow of the Boat was of palm-wood, its stern was of acacia-wood, and he landed at Thest-Hor, to the east of the Inner Waters. And to him came Horus of Edfu, he whose name is Harpooner and Hero, seeking for that Wicked One, Set, the murderer of Osiris. Long had he sought, but Set had ever eluded him.
The Majesty of Ra had gathered his forces, for Set had rebelled against him, and Horus was glad at the thought of battle, for he loved an hour of fighting more than a day of rejoicing. He entered into the presence of Thoth, the twice great, god of magic, and Thoth gave him the power to change himself into a great winged disk, a disk that glowed like a ball of fire, with great wings on either side like the colours of the sky at sunset when the blue shades from dark to light, and is shot with gold and flame. Men try to copy these hues when they carve the winged disk above the temple-doors, or make it into a breast-ornament of gold inlaid with turquoise and carnelian and lazuli.
Thus Horus, as a great winged disk, sat on the prow of the Boat of Ra, and his splendour flashed across the waters and fell upon his foes as they lay in ambush. Upon his glorious wings he rose into the air, and against his crafty enemies he made a curse, a curse terrible and fear-striking, saying, "Your eyes shall be blinded, and ye shall not see; and your ears shall be deaf, and ye shall not hear."