It need hardly be said that these tales are quite fictitious. The king and his successor Khafra are real, but the other sons cannot be identified; and the confusion of supposing three kings of the Vth Dynasty to be triplets born early in the IVth Dynasty, shows what very vague ideas of their own history the Egyptians had when these tales were formed. This does not prevent our seeing that they embodied some very important traditions, and gives us an unequalled picture of the early civilisation. In the earliest tale or the three there seems at first sight merely a sketch of faithlessness and revenge. But [Page 10] there is probably much more in it. To read it aright we must bear in mind the position of woman in ancient Egypt. If, in later ages, Islam has gone to the extreme of the man determining
REMARKS 49
his own divorce at a word, in early times almost the opposite system prevailed. All property belonged to the woman; all that a man could earn, or inherit, was made over to his wife; and families always reckoned back further on the mother's side than the father's. As the changes in historical times have been in the direction of men's rights, it is very unlikely that this system of female predominance was invented or introduced, but rather that it descends from primitive times. In this tale we see, then, at the beginning of our knowledge of the country, the clashing of two different social systems. The reciter is strong for men's rights, he brings destruction on the wife, and never even gives her name, but always calls her merely "the wife of Uba-aner." But behind all this there is probably the remains of a very different system. The servant employed by the mistress seems to see nothing outrageous in her proceed-5
50 TALES OF THE MAGICIANS
ings; and even the steward, who is on the master's side, waits a day or two before reporting matters. When we remember the supremacy in properly and descent which women held in Egypt, and then read this tale, it seems that it belongs to the close of a social system like that of the Nairs, in which the lady makes her selection—with variations from time to time. The incident of sending a present of clothing is curiously like the tale about a certain English envoy, whose proprieties were sadly ruffled in the Nair country, when a lady sent him a grand shawl with an intimation of her choice. The priestesses of Amen retained to the last this privilege of choice, as being under divine, and not human protection; but it seems to have become unseemly in late times. The hinging of this tale, and of those that follow it, upon the use of magic, shows how thoroughly the belief in magic