s episode is of comparatively late
origin (cf. p. 41 for the date at which the horse was
acclimatized in Egypt).

His "Followers"--_Shosuu Horu_--defeated the "Accomplices of
Sit"--_Samiu Sit_--who were now driven in their turn to transform
themselves into gazelles, crocodiles and serpents,--animals which were
henceforth regarded as unclean and Typhonian. For three days the two
chiefs had fought together under the forms of men and of hippopotami,
when Isis, apprehensive as to the issue of the duel, determined to bring
it to an end. "Lo! she caused chains to descend upon them, and made them
to drop upon Horus. Thereupon Horus prayed aloud, saying: 'I am thy son
Horus!' Then Isis spake unto the fetters, saying; 'Break, and unloose
yourselves from my son Horus!' She made other fetters to descend, and
let them fall upon her brother Sit. Forthwith he lifted up his voice and
cried out in pain, and she spake unto the fetters and said unto them:
'Break!' Yea, when Sit prayed unto her many times, saying: 'Wilt thou
not have pity upon the brother of thy son's mother?' then her heart was
filled with compassion, and she cried to the fetters: 'Break, for he is
my eldest brother!' and the fetters unloosed themselves from him, and
the two foes again stood face to face like two men who will not come
to terms." Horus, furious at seeing his mother deprive him of his prey,
turned upon her like a panther of the South. She fled before him on that
day when battle was waged with Sit the Violent, and he cut off her head.
But Thot transformed her by his enchantments and made a cow's head for
her, thereby identifying her with her companion, Hathor.

[Illustration: 253.jpg ISIS-HATHOR, COW-HEADED. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bronze statuette of Saite
period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album photographique
du musee de Boulaq_, pl. 5, No. 167).

The war went on, with all its fluctuating fortunes, till the gods at
length decided to summon both rivals before their tribunal. According to
a very ancient tradition, the combatants chose the ruler of a
neighbouring city, Thot, lord of Hermopolis Parva, as the arbitrator of
their quarrel. Sit was the first to plead, and he maintained that Horus
was not the son of Osiris, but a bastard, whom Isis hao conceived after
the death of her husband. Horua triumphantly vindicated the legitimacy
of his birth; and Thot condemned Sit to restore, according to some, the
whole of