MYTHS AND LEGENDS ANCIENT EGYPT by LEWIS SPENCE Author of "The Myths of Mexico and Peru," "The Civilisation of Ancient Mexico," "The Popol Vuh," "The Myths of the North American Indians" BOSTON DAVID D. NICKERSON & COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1915 [Illustration: The Presentation of Ani to Osiris) From the Papyrus of Ani--Reproduced from the Facsimile by Permission of the Director of the British Museum] PREFACE In this volume the religious history of ancient Egypt has been reviewed in the light of the science of modern mythology. Few Egyptologists are well informed regarding the basic laws of that science, and much misapprehension regarding the character and attributes of many of the deities worshipped in the Nile Valley in times past has thereby resulted. The statement that Egyptian religious ideas cannot be collated with barbarian and savage conceptions simply because they are Egyptian and therefore 'classic' and inviolate will no longer remain unquestioned among that section of the public accustomed to think for itself, and such pronouncements as that the animal gods of Egypt have no connexion with totemic origins will shortly assume their proper perspective. In advancing ideas so iconoclastic--which all will remember were adumbrated by the late Mr. Andrew Lang and strongly buttressed by Sir James Frazer--it is essential that I should at the outset protect myself against any charges of lack of acquaintance with the science of Egyptology. Such a work as this, which attempts to further recent views concerning a well-worn subject, must by the very circumstances of its effort be cast and written in popular style. That such a treatment is sufficient to prejudice it in the eyes of a certain type of critic I am well aware. A long series of handbooks and articles had prepared critics for my work in this series upon Mexican and Peruvian myth, and it was generally admitted that I spoke upon these subjects out of the authority of long experience.