When Ra ascended the throne, the eternal enemy of the Sun, the giant serpent Apep - an evil monster 450 cubits long, attacked the solar god in order to overthrow him and destroy him. Ra entered into battle with the serpent. The bloody slaughter lasted the whole day, from dawn to dusk, and, finally, the Lord of All That Existed won the victory and defeated the enemy. But the evil Apep was not killed: seriously wounded, he dived into the River and swam to the Duat. Since then, Apep lives underground and every night attacks the Boat of Eternity as it sails through the Duat from west to east.
The enemies of the Sun God very often take the form of hippopotamuses and crocodiles. The God of gods every now and then has to repel their hordes in order to protect the world order and law. Other gods help him in this: Shu, Onuris, the warrior god Montu, Khor Bekhdetsky - the son of Ra and Nut, the solar cheetah goddess Mafdet. Together with Ra, they killed the giant crocodile Maga by piercing him with spears.
But most often, evil forces and fiends, trying to destroy the Sun, attack the Boat of Eternity in the guise of snakes. However, Ra and his companions invariably defeat their enemies. Ra killed one of the villains - a giant multi-colored snake - under the sacred sycamore tree of Heliopolis, taking the guise of the Great Cat.
And yet, among the snakes, the Sun God has not only enemies. The uraeus cobra itself destroys the enemies of Ra with its incinerating rays. The Serpent Mehen-tha protects the Boat of Eternity during Ra's journey through the Duat. The snake goddess Merit-Seger guards the tombs of the Theban necropolis, in which the deceased pharaohs rest.
The Legend of Chorus Bekhdetsky, the Winged Sun
In the 36th year of the earthly reign of Ra-Horakhte, the solar god was in Nubia, and with him was his fearless army. Meanwhile, in Egypt, a conspiracy was brewing: the demons of darkness, dissatisfied with the rule of Ra, were preparing for a rebellion. Horus, the son of Ra and Nut, the patron saint of the city of Bekhdet, learned about this.
Ra sailed in his Boat. And the Horus of Bekhdet was in the Boat of Ra, and he said to his father Ra-Horakhta:
“I see enemies plotting against their mighty ruler!”
The Sun God ordered Horus to immediately engage in battle with the conspirators. The choir took the form of a winged solar disk, soared into the heavens and found the enemy camp from above. He prepared for battle, issued a war cry and so quickly attacked the demons of darkness, raged against them so much that he killed the entire horde instantly, and not a single head remained alive.
The triumphant Horus returned to his father's Rook and invited Ra-Horakhte and his daughter Astarte, the warrior goddess and patroness of war chariots, to the site of the massacre to admire the defeated enemies. And His Majesty set off.
The Lord of the World and his retinue contemplated the valley strewn with corpses for a long time. Having enjoyed this spectacle, Ra said to Thoth:
“This means that my enemies are punished, and therefore this region will be called Edzhbo from now on!”
But not all of Ra’s enemies were destroyed by Horus in Egyptian land. There are still many who plot against the ruler. They all turned into crocodiles and hippopotamuses, took refuge in the waters of Hapi, and from there, from an ambush, again attacked the sacred Rook. Then the Bekhdetsky Horus came with his companions, who followed him like harpooners <...> They struck crocodiles and hippopotamuses and took away 651 enemies at once.
After this brilliant victory, already the second in a row, the Choir again took the form of a winged solar disk and positioned itself on the bow of the Boat of Eternity, taking with it Nekhbet and Wadget as two uraei frightening enemies. The Solar Boat pursued the enemy army, which had taken flight, throughout Egypt, from the Lower Reaches to the Upper Reaches, and the Chorus won many more victories near different cities. The bloodiest was the last battle - in the Meret nome. The Bekhdet choir carried out (there) a great massacre among (the demons) and took away 381 captives and killed them before the Rook of Ra.
Then the lord of the fiends himself, Set, attacked Horus. They fought for a whole hour. And Horus of Bekhdet won again: he captured Seth, chained him in stocks, dragged him by the legs along (Nom Meret) and plunged his spear into his head and back. But Elodei nevertheless escaped: he turned into a roaring serpent and entered the earth in this city (Meret), and was never seen again.
After the final victory over the forces of evil, Ra-Horakhte ordered Thoth to place a winged solar disk in all the temples of Egypt - as a memory of the exploits of Horus.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru