Week 4 Storytelling: The King's Kindness and the Green Jewel

One day, King Sneferu grew bored of sitting in his palace doing kingly stuff. I mean, he could only do so much work before it became rather tedious. So he called his chief scribe in to ask for some ideas of things that could cure his boredom.

"Dude, I'm so ridiculously bored I'm losing my mind in here," said Sneferu. "I need some ideas of things to do."

Now his scribe knew the king pretty well, and knew his interests well. The scribe had a laundry list of things the king enjoyed doing, but he had done all of them fairly recently, and surely something he had done before wouldn't make him any less bored. But then, the scribe thought of an idea in the back of his mind for the king to do.

"Go out to the lake, Your Highness," the scribe suggested. "Pick some girls from the kingdom to row for you, that way you can enjoy their beauty and relax at the same time. Maybe take some lunch and just spend the afternoon out there."

The king stroked his regal king beard as he thought of whether he wanted to do this or not.

Metal representation of what Sneferu's beard may have looked like.* How regal.

After some internal deliberation, Sneferu decided his scribe was probably right, as he usually was. "Right you are, dear friend," he said. "Fetch me some beautiful women and send word to the docks to have a boat prepared for my departure within the hour."

Sneferu and the women the scribe found set out on their relaxing day on the lake (relaxing for the king that is, the women were rowing for him). After a while, one of the girls suddenly stopped rowing. The king immediately asked what was going on because as most of you know, if more people are rowing on one than on the other, the boat starts turning. Sneferu got kind of mad because the sun was in the perfect position and now it was ruined. 

"What in the name of Ra is going on?" the king exclaimed. 

One of the girls responded, "The driver lost one of her jewels." 

"And?" questioned the king incredulously. "What concern is that of mine?"

Now the girl who had lost her jewel spoke up, explaining, "This jewel is one of my most prized possessions, Your Highness. It was given to me from my mother, who is now with Osiris in the underworld."

When he heard this, the king felt bad for the girl, for it was partially his fault she had lost it. So he offered to find it for her in the lake. She tried to decline, but the king insisted. He told them to drop the anchor so they wouldn't drift away, and after taking off most of his clothes, jumped into the water. He dove and dove, much farther than he had expected it to be. 

After what felt like ages, the king surfaced with the girl's jewel in his hand. The girl was ecstatic and thanked the king profusely. The king handed her the jewel under one premise: come back to the palace with him and be his wife, for she was beautiful. Of course she agreed. 

When they got back to the palace, the story was recounted time and time again of the king's courage and dedication to helping the girl. Once the night crept around, the scribe went to bed immediately. He had a long day ahead of him tomorrow; after all, the hieroglyphics to cement the story in history wouldn't write themselves. 

Author's Note: I used the Green Jewel as reference for my story. My last few stories have been pretty seriously written in terms of the language I used and the content, so I wanted to write a little more light-hearted story. I changed the ending mainly, because in the original the scribe whips up a fancy spell to split the lake, and that was just a little too magical for me. Hope you guys enjoyed!

*Disclaimer: he may or may not have actually had a beard.

Bibliography:
Egyptian Myth and Legend
Donald Mackenzie
1907

Reading Diary B: Ancient Egypt

Continuing the Ancient Egypt unit, this will either be really long or not long at all, I haven't figured it out yet, mostly because the second half of the unit is literally three stories divided into eight sections.

So let's get this underway. The first story to focus on is The Two Brothers. The first thing that stuck out to me was the fact that Bata does whatever Anpu want him to (his older brother). Bata is a loyal brother to him. Sadly, as happens so often in old tales and myths (thinking along the lines of Jezebel), Anpu's wife tries to sabotage Bata by saying he attacked her. Anpu plans to kill him, but the oxen he takes care of start talking to him, which makes it sound like Bata is tripping on something.

Bata leaves after he explains to Anpu that he is upset he tried to kill him without letting him tell his side. So for once, Bata gives Anpu the orders. He tells him to go find him under an acacia tree where his soul will be when the time is ready.

Acacia tree

The gods give Bata a beautiful wife, but then say she'll die a quick death, which is kind of messed up if you ask me since they gave her to Bata so he wouldn't be lonely. What's the point of that? Also, later in the story she goes back to where the king is at, and the acacia tree gets cut down. So not only does Bata get his wife taken, but he also dies. He lives and dies a couple of times, and eventually becomes the king of Egypt so this story actually had a happy ending, which was nice. 

I'm going to cut the post here for brevity because if I don't it'll end up being about 800 words, but I thoroughly enjoyed this unit. The stories were interesting and seemingly humanized the gods in a way that the Greek myths didn't, as far as I'm concerned. 

Reading Diary A Week 4: Ancient Egypt

For week 4, I've decided to read the section on Egyptian myths. The list of gods in Egyptian culture is pretty extensive, so I realize I won't get to all of them, but here are the ones I've chosen to focus on.

The first one I liked a lot was the Secret Name of Ra. I thought it was interesting how rather than being immortal, all-powerful gods, they (specifically Ra) are portrayed like humans, growing old and decrepit. The way the gods are depicted makes me see why the Egyptians put so much faith in them; the stories about them make them so relatable.

The gods also have their own desires and personalities as we see in Isis. She's willing to kill the most powerful god, the one who started everything, just so she can hear his secret name and take his power. This perfectly captures certain aspects of humanity. Some are willing to do whatever it takes to rise to power.

The next one I found interesting was the story of Osiris and how he rises to power. Osiris is described as a king amongst men, one who ushered mankind into a civilized age. With Isis' help, he taught the people of Egypt how to grow wheat and fruit so they could have a steady supply of food instead of having to constantly hunt for food. It is explained that Osiris then went out in the world and persuaded the men of the world to give up their evil ways with gentle words. That's not something you often hear when talking about gods in mythology, so it was a nice change from death and rage!

Osiris, commonly depicted with green skin and holding a crook and flail.

Lastly, I liked the King of the Dead section. This is the first time in the unit that Osiris is mentioned as being in a mummified form. He tells Horus, Isis' son, to avenge his death at the hands of Set, Horus' uncle. In a series of battles, Horus defeats Set, but loses an eye in the process. It is also explained that Ra sent down Anubis to piece Osiris back together. He then becomes the god of the underworld, the Judge and King of the Dead. 

Horus is often depicted as a hawk or falcon.