Isis and her son Horus had been living well since she had gained some of Ra’s power. They had been reunited with her husband Osiris, god of the dead and the afterlife, and they were living happily among the gods as Osiris ruled. But then tragedy struck.
Set, the brother of Osiris, had been jealous of his brother’s power for a long time and one day he snapped. He killed Osiris in a fit of rage. He put his body in a coffin and sent it into the sea, so that no one could ever find him. He then locked Isis and Horus up and held them captive for many years. It was not a particularly pleasant captivity, but it was not a tortuous one. Set kept them fed and healthy, but refused to let them leave his palace or know anything of the outside world.
When Horus was a young man, Set realized that one day Horus could be strong enough to overthrow him, and claim the throne as the heir of Osiris. So he began to make plans to kill the boy. A wise and powerful god, Thoth, heard of this and went to Isis to warn her. He helped her and her son escape while Set was gone. She went to a close friend, Uazit, the goddess of the city, to look after her son. Uazit took the physical form of a snake, so Isis figured Horus would be protected. But then she came back one day to find Horus dead of a scorpion bite, and because he was a victim of circumstance, her powers were not strong enough to heal him.
She began to cry over his body but as she cried, Thoth appeared once more. He took pity on Isis and Horus and used his powers to restore Horus to life, with the caveat that he would grow up to become strong enough to defeat his father’s killer. Isis finally felt that her son would be okay without her, so she left him in the hands of the gods, who would train him to fight.
She then set out to find the body of Osiris to see if her power could restore his life. Set had set his coffin adrift in the sea, so it could be anywhere by now. She had heard a story about a tree that had grown spontaneously on the beach of a nearby city, Byblos, so she set out to investigate. She arrived in Byblos to find a stump where the tree should have been. She wandered into the city and began to inquire about the fate of the tree. Someone told her that the king had cut it down and put it in his palace, because he thought it was sacred. She traveled to the palace, and gained entry by pretending to be one of the queen’s handmaidens.
She entered the courtyard where the tree stood and immediately sensed her husband’s presence. She stayed in the courtyard late into the night and once she was finally alone, she began to break the tree open. Using her magic, she brought down a single bolt of lightning onto the tree, splitting the trunk down the middle. Once the smoke cleared, it revealed the coffin.
Using a cloaking spell, she snuck out of the palace with the coffin, levitating it behind her as she walked, and returned to her home. She knew she could restore Osiris, but she had exhausted her magic by splitting the tree trunk and she needed to rest before she attempted to revive him. She hid the coffin in the Delta jungle, planning to return the next day. But unfortunately, Set chose that night to go hunting in the jungle, and stumbled upon the coffin he thought he had disposed of.
He assumed Isis was going to bring him back to life, and so he chopped the body up into many pieces and scattered them among the Nile and the Delta. Isis learned what he had done, and was devastated. She wept for days in the spot where she had left him, flooding the Delta.
But finally she realized that this was not how her husband's story should end. Her son would defeat Set and she would save Osiris, no matter how long it would take. She needed their family to be whole again, and vowed to do whatever it took. So she set off on her long journey to put her husband back together again.
Author’s note: According to Egyptian mythology, when Isis wept for Osiris at the Delta, it flooded. Worshippers of Isis believe that every year when the Delta floods, it is because Isis is weeping for her husband once more. For this story, I used the tale of Isis and how she saves her son and locates her husband’s body, but is thwarted by Set. In the original story, when Isis goes to Byblos, she indoctrinates herself into the queen’s court, and becomes the nurse for the queen’s newborn baby. SHe attempts to give the child immortality using fire, but the mother comes in and interrupts the spell, thinking Isis is trying to kill her child. Unfortunately, the baby ends up dying anyway, due to Isis’s revelation of her true form due to rage. I am really trying to paint Isis as a caring mother who is doing all of this to put her family back together, and so her doing these things to a baby and it’s mother does not fit that idea. Other than cutting out that part, I left the plot of the story roughly the same. The next and last part of this trilogy will deal with Isis finding the pieces of her husband and getting help from Thoth and Ra to revive him.
Story source: The Journey of Isis from Egyptian Myth and Legend by Donald Mackenzie link to online reading
Image information: Cyprus Tree