Week 4, Storytelling: Thoth's Revenge

Nefer was a good student at Alexandria High and received the highest grades in his class. He had a full ride to Egypt University and the sky was the limit. He was always searching for new knowledge and was always trying to learn. One day, while he was at the Library of Alexandria, he had wandered into an older section of the library. This section contained all of the old magic scrolls that no one really believed in anymore. All of the scrolls were dusty and piled on top of one another haphazardly. As he was walking through the stacks, one caught his eye. It was shoved in the corner of the very bottom shelf. After some tugging and rearranging, he finally pulled out the old papyrus. This was nothing like he had ever seen before, it was The Book of Thoth. The first few pages told him about a way to learn all the spells in the book. First, you had to write down the spells on a piece of papyrus. Second, you had to wash the ink off with beer. Third, you had to drink the beer, and only then would you know the spells by heart. He then started writing everything down and learning it this way.

Book of the Dead Papyrus. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

After doing this with all the spells in the book and all the books in the library, he became a powerful magician. He had stolen The Book of Thoth from the library so no one else would ever have the same power he did. Years later, Thoth went to Ra and asked him for permission to exact his revenge on Nefer for stealing his book. Ra granted him permission and Thoth got his revenge by burning down the Library of Alexandria. This was a devastating blow to the people of Alexandria and everyone else since this was one of the main resources for the culture, arts, and literature of the world. By this time, papyrus had became scarce and so Nefer tried to recreate all of the scrolls on parchment but died before he could finish.

Authors Note: This story is based on the Egypt Mythology story of The Book of Thoth. I thought it was interesting how he learned the spells and I thought Thoth’s revenge would be a good explanation for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Story source: Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907). I have a bad cold, so I feel horrible. This story is lacking creativity but I did the best I could on what I had.

Week 4, Extra Reading Diary: Welsh (Emerson) (Second Half)

Welsh (Emerson) 2nd Half

For this weeks extra reading I read the second half of the Welsh (Emerson) Unit. It was boring at first, but picked up nicely. Most of the stories had no point or meaning, but was just a quick story, but there were a couple that I liked.

Billy Duffy and the Devil
In Billy Duffy and the Devil, Billy is a local blacksmith who seems to be the town drunk. One day when he had ran out of money for a drink, Billy said that he would sell his soul for more drink. Of course, a devil showed up and said he would pay for his soul and would come collect in seven years. Billy was always partying and people would show up at his house randomly. One day a hermit showed up and visited a few times so he gave Billy three wishes. Billy wished for his hammer to keep hammering when used, his purse to never let anything go, and his armchair to hold whoever sat in it. After the first seven years, Billy tricked the devil with the hammer. The second seven years, Billy tricked the devil with the purse. The third seven years, Billy tricked the devil with the chair and bargained for the rest of his life in exchange for the devil to be let go. When Billy died, he went to hell and they wanted no part of him. He then went to heaven but they wouldn't let him in because he was a bad man, so he went back to earth and turned into a will-o-the-wisp.

Mermen. Russian lubok. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Fishermen of Shetland
This story is almost like a bad joke. A merman, a witch, and a dwarf walk into a bar... In the story two fisherman brothers are trying to date the rich girls in town. The merman got a belt from a fairy queen to help him, help the fishermen to know where to fish. The witch and dwarf were in cahoots to steal the belt, kidnap the merman, and starve all the fishermen. The dwarf stole the belt, then the fairy queen sent one of the brothers to kill him. He killed him and then she sent him back to kill the witch. After all was done they found the merman and the boys got the girls and all lived happily ever after.

Week 4, Reading Diary B: Ancient Egyptian Mythology

Ancient Egyptian Mythology

The Two Brothers
This story has 4 parts, which makes it long, but it is very interesting. Anpu is the older brother who is married and Bata is the younger brother. Bata plows the fields for Anpu and his wife and is basically a care taker of his brothers farm. One day Bata is planting the field and goes to Anpu's house to get seeds. Anpu's wife then hits on him. Bata turns her down and goes back to work. The wife then tells Anpu that Bata tried to hit on HER. So, of course, the brother took the woman's word for face value and went to kill his brother. Bata could understand what the animals said, and they warned him that his brother was coming to kill him. Bata prayed to Ra to help him and so a stream popped up between them with crocodiles. Bata then told his brother what his wife did. Bata told his brother that he was going to go somewhere else to live and that his soul would be in the highest acacia tree, and when it was cut down he would know because his beer would go rancid. He told his brother to put his soul in a cup of water and I will grow back. Yea, that was a really weird story, but hey...Anyway, Anpu killed his wife and mourned his brother. Meanwhile, the gods made a wife for Bata. A piece of Bata's wife's hair went down the river and made the King want her, so he sent people to get her. The scribes cut down the trees and killed Bata. Anpu's wine turned rancid, so he went to find his brother's soul. The brother came back as a bull. Anpu and the bull went to see his ex-wife and Bata, the bull, told her he was Bata. The wife had the King sacrifice the bull. Two drops of blood fell and trees grew. The tree's told her that they were Bata, so she had the trees cut down. A piece of wood went into her mouth and made her pregnant. After the King died and appointed his son as king, Bata revealed that he was the son and had his ex-wife put to death. The end.

The Book of Thoth
This story has 3 parts and is very interesting also. This is about a man, Nefer-ka-ptah, who wants to get the book of Thoth, which contains all the magic and knowledge of everything. It is in the middle of a river in Koptos, in 6 boxes within boxes, and surrounded by snakes and scorpions and one snake that cannot be killed. Long story short, Nefer got the book and it pissed Thoth off so much that he asked Ra to let him have vengeance so Ra said, sure why not! Thoth then drowned and killed Nefer's son, wife and then Nefer himself. But, before he did that, Nefer had copied one of the spells onto a piece of papyrus, washed it in beer and then drank the beer that had the ink from the spell in it. I thought this would be a cool story to spin off for the storytelling portion.

"The Great Library of Alexandria" by VonCorven. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Week 4, Reading Diary A: Ancient Egyptian Mythology

Ancient Egyptian Myths

This first half of the Ancient Egyptian myths was very interesting. I found a lot of similarities between some bible stories and these Egyptian stories.

Ra and Hathor
This story was about Ra and how he became angry at the people that called him old. He was going to flood the world, but decided to just send Hathor, the eye of Ra, down to slaughter his enemies. As she was wading through the blood of the fallen, Ra had a change of heart and poured 7,000 jars filled with beer on the earth to flood it. Hathor then became drunk. From then on the people would give beer as an offering to the goddess.

The Journey of Isis
Set, Osiris' brother, wanted to kill Horus, Osiris' son, so he could rule. Isis, Horus' mother, took him and ran away. Long story short, Osiris's body was eventually chopped into 14 pieces and thrown in the Nile. The crocodiles would not eat the pieces because they were afraid of Isis, but a fish ate his penis. Isis found the 13 pieces and erected temples over those pieces but never found the piece the fish ate. I was thinking maybe a story about the the 14th piece and the fish might be interesting.

The Green Jewel
In this story, King Sneferu was walking around bored one day. He went to his scribe and whined that he was bored. The scribe suggested that he get 20 of his virgins and let them row him around the lake. This apparently turned out to be a good idea until one of the girls lost a green jewel from her hair in the lake. She pitched a fit and wouldn't go anywhere until she got that exact jewel back, so the King went and told his scribe. The scribe came back to the lake and muttered a spell to part the waters to find the jewel and they all lived happily ever after.

Emerald Teardrop by ARTG33K74. Source: Deviant Art