h of the god. The two
hills are divided, the god comes into being, the god takes possession of
his body. The two hills are divided, this Neferkere comes into being,
this Neferkere takes possession of his body. Behold this Neferkere--his
feet are kissed by the pure waters which are from Atum, which the
phallus of Shu made, which the vulva of Tefnut brought into being. They
have come, they have brought for thee the pure waters from their
father."[356]

The Egyptians entertained the belief[357] that the sun-god was born of
the celestial cow Mehetweret, a name which means "Great Flood," and
is the equivalent of the primeval ocean Nun. In other words the
celestial cow Hathor, the embodiment of the life-giving waters of heaven
and earth, is the mother of Horus. So also Aphrodite was born of the
"Great Flood" which is the ocean.

In his report upon the hieroglyphs of Beni Hasan,[358] Mr. Griffith
refers to the picture of "a woman of the marshes," which is read
_sekht_, and is "used to denote the goddess Sekhet, the goddess of the
marshes, who presided over the occupations of the dwellers there. Chief
among these occupations must have been the capture of fish and fowl and
the culture and gathering of water-plants, especially the papyrus and
the lotus". Sekhet was in fact a rude prototype of Artemis in the
character depicted by Dr. Rendel Harris.[359]

It is perhaps not without significance that the root of a marsh plant,
the _Iris pseudacorus_[360] is regarded in Germany as a luck-bringer
which can take the place of the mandrake.[361]

The Great Mother wields a magic wand which the ancient Egyptian scribes
called the "Great Magician". It was endowed with the two-fold powers of
life-giving and opening, which from the beginning were intimately
associated the one with the other from the analogy of the act of birth,
which was both an opening and a giving of life. Hence the "magic wand"
was a key or "opener of the ways," wherewith, at the ceremonies of
resurrection, the mouth was opened for speech and the taking of food, as
well as for the passage of the breath of life, the eyes were opened for
sight, and the ears for hearing. Both the physical act of opening (the
"key" aspect) as well as the vital aspect of life-giving (which we may
call the "uterine" aspect) were implied in this symbolism. Mr. Griffith
suggests that the form of the magic wand may have been derived from that
of a conventionalized picture of the uterus,[362] in