Story: The Origin of Nile Flooding

In the land fertilized by the Nile, the people were ruled by their God, Ra, in the human form. Ra was born by Nun, God of Primordial Water, and given a divine name that he became more powerful than his creator. Besides being the God of Sun, Ra was also the creator of heaven and earth and all the living deities between these two realms. Ra granted his people the fruitful soil that he named Egypt and protected his people from the evil demons at night. Although he was loved by his people, things changed when his body showed the signs of aging.

His decreasing health led to the grow doubt among his people and sparked the greedy fire in the mind of his descendant, Isis. She was born as the Goddess of Magic by the gods of heaven and earth. Her magical power fulfilled many wishes of the people, giving her a high reputation among the people. As Ra aging over time, Isis’s yearning for the same power as Ra. One day, she succumbed to her greed.

Isis and Ra. Link

She took Ra’s saliva and mixed it with soil with her enchanting magic to create the serpent that invisible to the gods. Her intention was to have the serpent bites Ra, giving him the agonizing pain, and at this moment, Ra would ask her to perform magic on him to heal him. Then, she would persuade him to tell her his divine name in order for her magic to help him. Everything occurred as she planned, but she did not know that the full power of divine name cannot be transfer unless the previous was dead. Yet, she healed Ra. During this process, the people of Egypt were looking for a new ruler, a new pharaoh. After Isis healed Ra, her reputation grew tremendously among the people.

Unknown to both Isis and Egyptian people, Nun told Ra who created the scheme to hurt him. Angered and disappointed by his descendant and people, Ra decided to strip off his human form and ascend to heaven, claiming that he would forever residing over the people who betrayed him. In his anger, he burned the land of Egypt with the sun, turning the fertile soil into grainy sand. As for his descendant, Isis, he cursed her with the emotional pain and struggles in return to the physical pain he had endured.

God Ra. Link

 After Ra ascended to the heaven, Osiris, Isis’s husband, became the new ruler of sandy Egypt. According to his avenging plan, Ra seeded Set, brother of Osiris and God of Destruction, with jealousy. As his jealousy grew, Set ended up murder Osiris, scattered his body, and stole his throne. Pained by the death of her loving husband and worn out from running from Set’s murderous search, Isis traveled throughout the land of Egypt to search for Osiris’s body. Seeing Isis’s painful struggles and the starvation and famine roaming on Egypt, Ra ended his punishment. Ra sent Anubis, the god who guides the souls, down to helped Isis find Osiris’s body parts and his soul.

Isis and Osiris. Link

 After finding and mending Osiris’s body, Ra told Isis that in order to resurrect Osiris she must cry enough bloody tear to flood the Nile and immersed Osiris’s body in this flood. After doing so, Isis’s magical power weakened, but she was satisfied that her husband Osiris resurrected. However, after being resurrected from the death, Osiris lost the right the rule the land of the living, and so, Osiris became the ruler and the judge of the death while his son, Horus, ascended the throne. Anubis also stayed on earth and helped Osiris in the world of afterlife. As for Isis, she moved between the two realms living and death to help both her son and her husband. After all the works to have the same power as Ra, she was never a ruler.

Since Ra’s curse was too strong, Osiris died once every year and Isis had to flood the Nile with her tear to resurrect him. With Isis’s tear, the people of Egypt waited for that flood that heal and fertilize the sandy soil of Egypt, saving the Egyptian from starvation and death.

Bibliography: Donald Mackenzie, Egyptian Myth and Legend, Link

Author’s Notes:

I retell the story of Ra and the story about the resurrection of Osiris. All the main details are extracted from the main stories, but I added some background details like Ra found out who hurt him and linked Osiris’s death to Ra’s punishment for Isis. In the main stories, Isis did create a serpent to bite Ra in order to get his divine name and succeeded in knowing the divine name and gave it to her son, Horus. However, the story didn’t clearly say what power Horus received. As for Osiris’s death, the story stated that Set was jealous that Osiris had the power to rule the land and over him, and so, Set killed Osiris to seized the power. The story also emphasized the hardships that Isis went through to recover Osiris’s body, but the Nile flooding was not caused by her tear. The Nile was flooded to satisfy Hathor, who Ra commanded to kill the people of Egypt when he found out they were disloyal to him. After many killings, Ra tried to stop Hathor from destroy all human kind, and so, he flooded the Nile, causing Hathor to think the human is drowning. I changed the detail on Nile flood caused by Isis just for the flow of the story.