CHAPTER V
Racial Myths in Egypt and Europe
Worship of Animals—Possessed by Spirits of Good and Evil—Reptiles as Destroyers and Protectors—Pigs of Set and Osiris—The Moon Eater—Horus Solar and Storm Myth—The Devil Pig in Egypt and Scotland—Contrast with Gaulish, Irish, and Norse Beliefs—Animal Conflicts for Mastery of Herd—Love God a Pig—Why Eels were not eaten—The Sacred Bull—Irish and Egyptian Myths—Corn Spirits—The Goose Festival in Europe—The Chaos Egg—Giant’s Soul Myth—Nilotic and other Versions—Wild Ass as Symbol of Good and Evil.
One of the most interesting phases of Nilotic religion was the worship of animals. Juvenal ridiculed the Egyptians for this particular practice in one of his satires, and the early fathers of the Church regarded it as proof of the folly of pagan religious ideas. Some modern-day apologists, on the other hand, have leapt to the other extreme by suggesting that the ancient philosophers were imbued with a religious respect for life in every form, and professed a pantheistic creed. Our task here, however, is to investigate rather than to justify or condemn ancient Egyptian beliefs. We desire to get, if possible, at the Egyptian point of view. That being so, we must recognize at the outset that we are dealing with a confused mass of religious practices and conceptions of Egyptian and non-Egyptian origin, which accumulated during a vast period of time and were perpetuated as much by custom as by conviction. The average Egyptian of the later Dynasties might have been as little able to account for his superstitious regard for the crocodile or the ser-{c|62}}
