Reading Notes: Egyptian Myth and Legend, Part A

The above photo is of Ra the Sun God of Egypt as depicted on the Tomb of Nefertari, Queen of Ramses II, c. 1298-1235 BC, Egypt.

As you may have guessed, for today's reading I chose to do the Egyptian Myths and Stories unit because I saw it after doing the reading for last week and was bummed that I had passed it up. Luckily for me, this week is still focused on the Middle Eastern and Indian Units.

I really enjoyed all of the stories in this first part of the reading, as I do many stories about ancient deities and religions. I think I enjoyed these stories particularly though, because they were so unfamiliar to me. Although I knew of Ra the sun god, I had never heard the stories surrounding him and the other Egyptian gods. I think the most I ever knew about Ra and the others was a kids TV show about King Tut on Discovery Kids.

Of the stories I really liked "The Secret Name of Ra" and "The Wax Crocodile." I enjoyed the first one mostly for the cunning female character Isis. It was a nice change from the Greek and Roman stories that I have read that have more helpless or unfortunate female characters. I would love to incorporate a character like Isis into a story for this week. As for the second story, although I was really not happy with the burning-alive ending, I thought that the wax crocodile magically turning into a real crocodile was a pretty cool trick. I think that the better story would be that the scribe turned a wax crocodile into a real one and it attacked a woman's husband because he wanted the woman to himself and then at the end when he was found out the wax crocodile gets burned. Since I already have the plot in mind, maybe I could create a story with that plot and make the wife a strong female character like Isis. Yep. I think that is the plan, unless I find a better story tomorrow.

Bibliography

"Egyptian Myth and Legend" by Donald Mackenzie, 1907

Photo Credits

"Ra Horakhty, Tomb of Nefertari" by Lucas via Flickr

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