Ancient Egyptian legends

								

though we know not how."  Queen Athenais went to the shore to see the
strange woman and conversed with her, and they spoke together as
mothers speak, for each had a little son; the son of Isis was far
away and the son of Athenais was sick unto death.
Then rose up Isis, the Mighty in Magic, the skilful Healer, and said,
"Bring me to your son!"  Together the Goddess and the Queen returned
to the palace, and Isis took little Diktys in her arms and said, "I
can make him strong and well, but in my own way will I do it, and
none must interfere."
Every day Queen Athenais marvelled at her son.  From a little puling
babe he became a strong and healthy child, but Isis spoke no word and
none knew what she did.  Athenais questioned her maidens, and they
answered, "We know not what she does, but this we know, that she
feeds him not, and at night she bars the doors of the hall of the
pillar, and piles the fire high with logs, and when we listen, naught
can we hear but the twittering of a swallow."
Athenais was filled with curiosity and hid herself at night in the
great hall, and watched how Isis barred the doors and piled the logs
upon the fire till the flames rose high and scorching.  Then, sitting
before the fire, she made a space between the blazing logs, a space
that glowed red and crimson, and in that space she laid the child,
and turning herself into the form of a swallow, she circled round the
pillar, mourning and lamenting, and the lamentation was like the
twittering of a swallow.  Queen Athenais shrieked and snatched the
child from the fire, and turned to flee.  But before her stood Isis
the Goddess, tall and terrible.
"O foolish mother!" said Isis.  "Why didst thou seize the child?  But
a few days longer and all that is mortal in him would have been burnt
away, and as the Gods would he have been, immortal and for ever
young."
A great awe fell upon the Queen, for she knew that she looked upon
one of the Gods.  In humblest wise she and King Malkander prayed the
Goddess to accept a gift.  All the riches of Byblos were spread
before her, but to her they were as naught.
"Give me," she said, "what this pillar holds and I shall be content."
At once the workmen were summoned, and they took down the pillar, and
split it open, and lifted out the coffin.  And Isis took sweet spices
and scented blossoms; these she strewed upon the pillar, then wrapped
it in fine linen and gave it to the King and Queen.  And all the
people of Byblos worship it to this day, because once it held the
body of a god.
But Isis took the coffin on a boat and sailed away from Byblos, and
when the waves of the river Phaedrus, lashed by the wind, threatened
to sweep the coffin away, she dried up the water by her magical
spells.  Then, in a solitary place, she opened the coffin, and,
gazing upon the face of the dead God, she mourned and lamented.
Now some say that when Isis left Byblos she took Diktys with her, and