She is a deity with several attributes, including happiness, which seems to have been in short supply in that part of the world. As protector of women, she’s often described as a cow, but she is far more than that: she is seven cows all at once. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

The mother of Anhur under the name Heret, she certainly put herself about a bit. She was certainly a Goddess of great complexity, associated with love, fertility, naughtiness, moon, music and cavorting. She has more associations with whatever was going on than you could shake a sistrum at.

As a welcome passenger on the Ra cruises, she had the hots for Ra or vice-versa. You never know with Sun Gods. Once when Ra was being jeered at by Earthlings for looking frail after a heavy night, she took up a cudgel on his behalf. There was a rampage of frazzling which wiped out half the humans in the Nile Valley. She vowed to come back and take care of the rest after a weekend break.

Initially flattered, Ra was now horrified. To prevent further carnage he made secret arrangements with the brewing industry. Seven thousand jugs of red beer were poured into the Nile to look like blood of the slain.

Intrigued by the vast red lake, Hathor stopped to peer at her red reflection. A finger to the lips of the image, and a little lick. Mm, tasty. One thing led to another and as plotted the biggest one-Goddess binge of all time was under way.

Some time passed before Hathor woke up. She could remember very little. She certainly couldn’t remember drinking all that beer. If there was any carnage it was nothing to do with her. It was a pity that all the witnesses appeared to be dead. She did remember setting out on this enterprise in the company of Sekhmet, so it was all probably his fault.

If it would help to compensate for any distress, she would be willing to donate a generous proportion of her Godly time to take on the duties of Revelry and Quaffing.

Furthermore she would also undertake the planning of the Nile Floods, so important to Egyptian agriculture. This could easily be calculated as she represented the Dog Star Sirius and, according to Thoth, if Sirius rose before the sun or some such thing, flooding was imminent. Sorted.

Now Hathor was popular and endearing and not given to ripping people apart. Whereas Sekhmet was liable to bouts of being bloody-minded. We can only go with the theory that it was a prank that got out of hand thanks to Sekhmet.

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Article last revised on August 22, 2018 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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