Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories - Reading Diary A

This week I chose to read the Ancient Egyptian Myths and Stories from Donald Mackenzie's works. The story of The Secret Name of Ra was interesting to me. In Egyptian myth, Ra was the son of the god Nu, and he created all of the things on the earth. He was the divine king and he had many names. One of his names was the most important though, as it gave him his power. A goddess named Isis was jealous of his power and wanted to share it, so she created a serpent and hid it from all eyes. That serpent bit the king Ra and made him very sick and brought him much pain. Isis came forward and said that she could heal Ra, but only if he told her his secret name that gave him his power. This story was interesting to me because of the whole idea that knowing a name can give you all of the power in the world. In other stories, Ra is called the sun god. It is said that Horus possesses the eyes of Ra, which are the sun and the moon. This whole concept seems a little strange to me, but there are similar stories in Greek and Roman mythology. 

In the story of The Sun's Journey, Ra's journey to enter the heavens is described. To get there, he must pass through twelve divisions and face different challenges in each. Many of the divisions present Ra and his barque with serpents and other reptiles to battle. Some of the creatures described in this story are hard to picture- such as Sokar, the underworld god who has three human heads, a serpent's body, and the wings of a hawk. Eventually, Ra makes it through all of these challenges and into the heavens. Some of the characters described in this story are extremely creative. The sphinx and Osiris are two characters from this story that I have heard about before. 

(Ra on the solar boat. Source: Wikipedia)