The Two Brothers:
Okay, so this story is interesting. Two brothers, Anpu and Bata, live together. Anpu is the elder, has a wife, land, oxen, the whole shebang. Bata, for some reason, has chosen to live with his brother and tend the farm for him. He leads a pretty simple but laborous life, tending to the oxen and sowing the fields. But one day, he goes in to gather seed for the field he’s just plowed and his brother’s wife is making the flirty eyes at him. Disgusted and outraged, Bata refuses her and runs back outside. Then Anpu’s wife feels she’s been humiliated and makes it look like Bata beat her when Anpu comes back in. I don’t understand this woman. She has a loving and successful husband, and his brother who may as well be like her child. Can she really be that bored?
Anyway, Anpu tries to kill Bata, Ra intervenes, plays the mediator, and tells Anpu that Bata is innocent. Bata, angry with his brother for not believing his innocence in the first place, runs away to land with acacia trees (but beforehand he tells Anpu that he'll put his soul in an acacia blossom if he ever needs him again).
His elder brother laments and dices up his wife, letting the dogs eat her (a bit drastic, if you ask me).
Meanwhile, Bata makes a hut under an acacia tree and the Gods are like, ‘you know, it’s kind of lonely out here. Let’s give him a wife.’ So they give him a lovely wife and Hathor is jealous of her beauty (because Hathor).
Then while Bata is out hunting one day, his wife steps outside and the sea spirit tries to steal her. She rushes back inside the hut, but that trifling acacia tree gives the sea spirit a lock of her hair. The sea takes it to the palace of the king, and it smells like perfume (for some reason, even though she lives in the desert amongst wild beasts). The King must have her! So he sends men, who are killed by Bata, and then a woman, to collect the mysterious nice-smelling woman. She’s brought back to the palace, tells the king all of Bata’s secrets (such loyalty), and he goes and cuts down the acacia tree which holds Bata’s soul. The moral of this part of the story is to never trust your secrets to pretty women.
Anpu discovers his brother is dead and goes to his acacia tree, searching for his soul. He finds his soul in a seed and takes the seed back to his house and places it in a pitcher of water. This seed absorbs the healing powers of the water and restores Bata back to life (keep this in mind if someone you love dies prematurely).
An acacia blossom, where Bata said he would transfer his soul to.
Image: Wikipedia
I’m actually really curious about Ancient Egyptian necromancy. In many of the myths it was a common theme for the Gods to restore life. What other tales of necromancy are there, I wonder?
Concluding the story, Bata’s soul goes from Bull to tree, finally to boy. His ex-wife tries to finally get rid of him in each carnation, but he’s too crafty. When he’s born unto a woman, the King falls in love with him and names him Prince. When the King finally passes away, Bata gathers everyone around and tells what was done to him by his ex-wife and finally has his revenge.
He and Anpu live the rest of their days as royalty.
Honestly, this story was long, but very interesting and entertaining. I never knew what was going to happen next and it raises many questions for me about the role and magic of necromancy in Egyptian mythology. Is there really a way to put my soul into something and be reborn from it? Ah, what mysteries abound.
Bibliography: 'Egyptian Myths and Legends' by Donald Mackenzie (1907).
Read the stories here!
If you think about it necromancy wasn't prominent in just the middle-eastern Egyptian tales: the Bible is famous for its resurrection story of Jesus, which could be thought of as a type of necromancy. And not just Jesus was resurrected after the 3rd day that he was in his tomb: apparently all of the dead loved ones that worshiped Jesus came back to life and greeted their family and friends. So, the necromancy thing is everywhere in old tales!
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