Isis and the Secret Name

Isis was never very good at keeping secrets. Once she learned Ra’s name, it didn’t take long before Osiris and Horus also knew the singular word that could command the Sun God.

From there, she told her priestesses in all her temples all across the land, who in turn divulged the information to their husbands, sons, and daughters.

Suddenly, everyone across the land now knew how to control the most powerful entity in all the world. Ra was unable to take his boat through the Duat, meaning that Egypt was cast into an eternal night as Ra rushed from task to task.

One woman wanted her son to be married to the most beautiful woman in the Kingdom, while that woman’s father told Ra to marry her off to the Pharaoh. Farmers told Ra to ensure the strength of their crops after the floods, while bandits told Ra to open the temples of past Kings to snag the treasure that lay within.

“Isis,” said Osiris, “we can’t keep living like this. With no Sun, no one is worshiping at our temples anymore. Surely we will soon perish as the humans forget that we exist.”

Isis, hearing the pleas of her eternally wise husband, set out to find the creator of Ra’s secret name, Nu.

“Nu,” she cried into the primordial abyss. “Appear before me.” She spoke great words of power that compelled the ancient god to come to her, and, slowly but surely, the waters began to take shape into something resembling a god.

“What have you wrought, loose-tongued Isis?” he bellowed.

“You must give Ra a new name!” she implored. “The world will soon shrivel up and die without the Sun’s presence. It is true that I am to blame, but please do not let my husband and son come to harm for my mistake.”

Nu, despite being less powerful than Ra, was still the only being in the universe who remembered the ancient rites of naming, but he did not wish to let Isis off so easily.

“I will do this for you, Isis. But you must give me something in return. I will exchange your name for his for five days so that you will understand what you have done. During that time, you shall use your formidable magic to appease the humans who once worshiped you. Ra will return to the sky and soon you will return to your family. After that five days, I shall cause all but you to forget the name, so that all will be as it was. You, however, must live with the secret, as I will not grant you this boon again.”

And so Nu switched the true names of Ra and Isis and Isis spent five days tending to the needs, desires, and mere whims of Ra’s worshipers. After that, order and hierarchy were restored, and the worship-starved gods were fed once again from their temples. To this day, Isis has never divulged the secret of her name or Ra’s.

Author's Note: In the original story, Isis wants more power and tricks Ra into giving her his secret name, which grants a good deal of control over the Sun God. She does this by initially poisoning him, then telling him that he must share his secret and powerful name with her if he wants her to save him from a certain death. When I read that, I wondered what incentivized her to keep the name itself safe after she decides to save Ra, and thought that it would be fun to re-write the story as if she wasn't able to keep it to herself. Isis specifically is close both to Osiris and Horus (her husband and son, respectively) and I imagine that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination for her to have shared such a powerful tidbit with them. From there, I imagine that it spread like wildfire, like most good rumors do. The Egyptian pantheon also seems to have a good deal of interaction between humans and the divine, so it doesn't seem too far off to have there be some really significant and prolonged interplay that results in the gods themselves having to adjust their behavior. In addition, the music is a fun addition in parts where I thought there was a song that related, however closely, to the material.

Source Material: "The Secret Name of Ra" from Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie (1907)