Week 4 Storytelling: The Precious Book

          Thoth, the God of the moon and magic, wrote a book centuries before the time Egypt had formed. This book contained all of the magic he was composed of and if anyone were to read it, they would share the same powers of Thoth. To keep this from happening, Thoth bound the book within multiple boxes of different material like iron, ivory-and-ebony box and gold. To be even more cautious, Thoth placed snakes and scorpions as well as a snake that was undefinable by man to protect The Book of Thoth that laid in many boxes.

            After Thoth placed the box along with the animal guards at Koptos in the middle of the river, he sat and waited to see who would be his first victim. For centuries, this god would take time out of his day to watch upon the lake to see if someone would try and take what was his. Some men would try but fail at their attempt because they would be destroyed by all of the snakes and scorpions. Thoth would look down the foolish humans with a smirk, knowing that he was superior and it was to stay that way.   

            Years later, Thoth began to realize that he made the path too difficult for any human to survive so there was no point in guarding over it in the heavens. So he moved on with his life and continued his duty as a god. But one day, the King of Egypt’s son named Nefer-ka-ptah decided to take the journey to find the Book of Thoth. This news reached to the heavens that someone was going to get the book but the cocky Thoth would only snicker at the conversation for he knew no one was a match for his traps. So Thoth continued with his work as a god while the mortal tried to get his book.

            A day later, Thoth got a heavy pain in his chest that caused him to fall to his knees. His whole body shook as he tried to regain his balance to look below him to see Nefer-ka-ptah with his book.

Thoth's eyes widened with disbelief and his mouth dropped in awe, “t-this..can’t be. A mortal,” he paused to catch his breath,” stole my book!” His weak body then flaired up in rage.

Thoth ran to Ra and begged for his power to get his revenge on this mortal and his family for they stole his book with all of his powers written in it. Ra agreed and gave Thoth the power of Ra to seek his revenge. So Thoth ran to the edge of the heavens and looked down at the travelers as he used the power of Ra to draw Nefer-ka-ptah’s son to the water and drown him. Thoth did the same with his wife as he watched Nefer-ka-ptah suffer in the loss of his family. Thoth used the powers to then pull Nefer-ka-ptah into the water. It was harder to bring him in to the water since he already read a few of the pages in the book but he was no use for the pull of Ra.

As Nefer-ka-ptah drowned into the river, Thoth came down to look upon his squirming body going deeper into the river while he picked up his book that lay on the deck of the boat. Once he saw the man sink to the bottom of the River, Thoth was content. He made his way back into the heavens with the book clutched tightly in his chest as he whispered to himself, "my precious."

Precious 

Author's note: I chose to use The Book of Thoth I, II and III in the Ancient Egypt by Donald Mackenzie in Egyptian Myth and Legend (1907). I kept the bases of the story the same as the original but in the perspective of Thoth. Also, in the original story when Nefer-ka-ptah was pulled into the river, he bound the book to his chest and it was left with him when he was buried by his father and the citizens.