n and the fiery bolt which shot down from the sky to slay the
enemies of Re. For the men who were originally slaughtered to provide
the blood for an elixir now became the enemies of Re. The reason for
this was that, human sacrifice having been abandoned and substitutes
provided to replace the human blood, the story-teller was at a loss to
know why the goddess killed mankind. A reason had to be found--and the
rationalization adopted was that men had rebelled against the gods and
had to be killed. This interpretation was probably the result of a
confusion with the old legend of the fight between Horus and Set, the
rulers of the two kingdoms of Egypt. The possibility also suggests
itself that a pun made by some priestly jester may have been the real
factor that led to this mingling of two originally separate stories. In
the "Destruction of Mankind" the story runs, according to Budge,[195]
that Re, referring to his enemies, said: _ma-ten set uar er set_,
"Behold ye them (_set_) fleeing into the mountain (_set_)". The enemies
were thus identified with the mountain or stone and with Set, the enemy
of the gods.[196]

In Egyptian hieroglyphics the symbol for stone is used as the
determinative for Set. When the "Eye of Re" destroyed mankind and the
rebels were thus identified with the followers of Set, they were
regarded as creatures of "stone". In other words the Medusa-eye
petrified the enemies. From this feeble pun on the part of some ancient
Egyptian scribe has arisen the world-wide stories of the influence of
the "Evil Eye" and the petrification of the enemies of the gods.[197] As
the name for Isis in Egyptian is "_Set_" it is possible that the
confusion of the Power of Evil with the Great Mother may also have been
facilitated by an extension of the same pun.

It is important to recognize that the legend of Hathor descending from
the moon or the sky in the form of destroying fire had nothing whatever
to do, in the first instance, with the phenomena of lightning and
meteorites. It was the result of verbal quibbling after the destructive
goddess came to be identified with the moon, the sky and the "Eye of
Re". But once the evolution of the story on these lines prepared the
way, it was inevitable that in later times the powers of destruction
exerted by the fire from the sky should have been identified with the
lightning and meteorites.

When the destructive force of the heavens was attributed to the "Eye of
Re" and the god'