Goddessnames.net |
|
Isis Isis is a Egyptian mother Goddess. She is also known as Goddess of magic. Her parents are Geb, God of earth and Nut, creator Goddess of sky. Geb and Nut are both children of Sun, God of air and Tefnut, Goddess of moisture. Sun and Tefnut helped Atum, the God who is the primordial creator, to create earth. There was a prophecy saying that children of Nut were destined to overpower Atum-Ra, who was the most powerful of all Gods. There was 360 days in the Egyptian calendar, and five days that were outside of calendar. Children of Nut were born in those five days. First came Osiris (God of underworld, vegetation and corn), then Isis, Horus the elder, Seth (God of chaos and adversity), and Nefthys (Goddess of the death). To common Egyptians, Isis was the most important of all Gods. She represented all important aspects of normal life. She was a great mother (she was also called Stella Maris, heavenly mother, a title that later Virgin Mary was also called), and protector of the family. In most pictures of her she is shown with her son Horus. Pictures are very similar to Virgin Mary and child-Jesus, and is believed that those pictures are the source of many Christian art pieces. The main temple of Isis was on the island of File, in a city of Assuan. Even when the culture of ancient Egypt faded, the worship of Isis continued. Her temples were built in Rome and Greece, and when Romans came to Britain a temple for her was built in London. She was worshipped before ancient Egypt, and her cult was alive until Christianity came, and Virgin Mary took her place. Isis is wife and sister of Osiris, God of underworld, vegetation and corn. Osiris was the king of Gods, and his brother Seth, God of chaos and adversity, envied him. Once when Osiris came back from one of his journeys abroad, Seth arranged a celebration for him. At the party Seths servants carried a beautiful coffin to the room. Seth said that the one who fits in the coffin can have it, and all the Gods tried it. When Osiris tried, he fit in it perfectly, because the coffin was made for him. When Osiris was in the coffin Seth alerted his guards, and they closed the coffin and threw it in the river Nile. The coffin drifted in the Nile and finally game ashore in the city of Byblos, in Lebanon. The coffin clinged to a tree that was growing on the shore. In time the coffin was totally merged with the tree. The king of Byblos saw the tree, cut it down and made the middle pillar of his palace from it. Isis was very sad and angry about what happened and she wandered around Egypt trying to find her beloved husband. Finally she found the coffin with her magical abilities. She found out that her husbands body and coffin was part of a palace that was owned by the local king. Isis turned herself into an old hag, and waited on the beach. The kings servant girls were there to wash the laundry, and they felt pity of the old hag and gave her something to eat and treated her well. As a reward Isis showed them how to braid their hair. The queen noticed the servants hair, and asked them were they learned to do that. The servants told about the old hag that lived in the beach, and was very sad, but did not tell them why she was so sad. Before that the Queen had given birth to a son, the heir to the crown, and she was looking for a trustworthy nanny. The queen asked the hag to be his nanny and she said yes in condition that she was able to spend the night alone with the boy. The queen said yes, and Isis spent every night in the great hall of the palace with the baby. One night the queen became curious, because of some weird bird noises coming from the hall, and hid behind the curtains. She saw her son on top of burning stones and a bird hovering over him. The queen freaked and took her son away from the rocks. At that time Isis, who was the bird, showed herself and accused the queen of meddling. She said the was burning the mortality away from the child, but because of the queen she was not finished and the boy would stay mortal. The king and queen both honoured the Goddess and told that they would give everything she wanted to her. Isis told them that she wanted the pillar that was in the great hall of the palace. They gave the pillar to her, even thou it meant that the hall was destroyed because of it. Isis took the body of Osiris back to Egypt and guarded him with her sister Nefthys. Once when neither Isis nor Nefthys were around Seth found the body of Osiris. Seth cut the body in 14 pieces and trough it in the Nile. Once again Isis travelled to find her husband, but this time the job was even harder because her husband was in now 14 different pieces. Isis was able to find all parts of Osiris, except his penis that was eaten by Oxyrhyncus-fish. Isis reproduced the phallus in gold. Anubis, God of mortuary, came to help Isis and he embalmed Osiris body. After that Osiris was taken to the underworld were he became its king. Isis and Osiris had a child Horus that was destined to be the king of the Gods after Osiris died and became ruler of the underworld. Seth who stole the crown from Osiris wanted to be king himself tried to kill Horus. Isis hid her son until he was old enough to face Seth. Horus and Seth fight each other until Gods stopped it, and eventually decided that Horus was their king and Seth was deported to the desert were he became God of chaos. Isis was very powerful. More powerful than her was only the sun God Ra. She became the second most powerful of all Gods after she tricked Ra to reveal his secret name to her. Knowing someone’s secret name meant power and that was what Isis wanted. Ra was an old God and he often slept and was totally unawear what happened around him. When he slept Isis took some of his saliva and made a snake from it. The snake attacked Ra and he became very ill. Isis said that she would be able to heal him, in condition that he would reveal his secret name to her. At first Ra tried to give Isis a wrong name, but she did not believe him. Finally Ra was in so much pain that he had no other choice than to tell Isis the real name. Isis promised not to tell it to anyone else, and that is how she became so powerful. She never used the knowledge of the name, because knowing it was enough for her. More information about the magic and secrets of Isis will be published soon, bookmark now and come back soon!
Sacred Days Festivals dedicated to her 12 August
1-3 November
Sources: Michael Jordan, Encyclopedia of gods 2002 Michael Senior, Who´s who in mythology 1985 Elizabeth Hallan, Mytologian Jumalat (Gods and Goddesses, 96) 1997 Nigel Pennick, the Pagan book of days 1992 Arthur Cotterell, Mytologia: Jumalia, Sankareita, Myyttejä 2005 Robin Hard, the Routledge handbook
of Greek mythology 2004 |
© 2007-2008 Goddessnames.net All rights reserved.