r Isis. The words of Horus bind up
hearts and he comforteth him that is in affliction. Let your hearts
rejoice, O ye dwellers in the heavens. Horus who avenged his father
shall make the poison to retreat. That which is in the mouth of Ra shall
circulate, and the tongue of the Great God shall overcome [opposition].
The Boat of Ra standeth still and moveth not, and the Disk (_i.e._ the
Sun-god) is in the place where it was yesterday to heal Horus for his
mother Isis. Come to earth, draw nigh, O Boat of Ra, O ye mariners of
Ra; make the boat to move and convey food of the town of Sekhem (_i.e._
Letopolis) hither, to heal Horus for his mother Isis.... Come to earth,
O poison! I am Thoth, the firstborn son, the son of Ra. Tem and the
company of the gods have commanded me to heal Horus for his mother Isis.
O Horus, O Horus, thy Ka protecteth thee, and thy Image worketh
protection for thee. The poison is as the daughter of its own flame; it
is destroyed because it smote the strong son. Your temples are safe, for
Horus liveth for his mother." Then the child Horus returned to life, to
the great joy of his mother, and Thoth went back to the Boat of Millions
of Years, which at once proceeded on its majestic course, and all the
gods from one end of heaven to the other rejoiced. Isis entreated either
Ra or Thoth that Horus might be nursed and brought up by the goddesses
of the town of Pe-Tep, or Buto, in the Delta, and at once Thoth
committed the child to their care, and instructed them about his future.
Horus grew up in Buto under their protection, and in due course fought a
duel with Set, and vanquished him, and so avenged the wrong done to his
father by Set.

THE LEGEND OF KHENSU-NEFER-HETEP
AND THE PRINCESS OF BEKHTEN

Here for convenience' sake may be inserted the story of the Possessed
Princess of Bekhten and the driving out of the evil spirit that was in
her by Khensu-Nefer-hetep. The text of the Legend is cut in hieroglyphs
on a large sandstone tablet which was discovered by J.F. Champollion in
the temple of Khensu at Thebes, and was removed by Prisse d'Avennes in
1846 to Paris, where it is now preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
The form of the Legend which we have is probably the work of the priests
of Khensu, about 1000 B.C., who wished to magnify their god, but the
incidents recorded are supposed to have taken place at the end of the
fourteenth century B.C., and there may