Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge - Egyptian tales and legends : pagan, Christian, and Muslim

AMULETS AND SUPERSTITIONS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (23573-4)

DWELLERS ON THE NILE, E. A. Wallis Budge. (23501-7)

THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD, E. A. Wallis Budge. (21866-X)

THE EGYPTIAN HEAVEN AND HELL, E. A. Wallis Budge. (29368-8)

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC DICTIONARY, E. A. Wallis Budge. (23615-3, 23616-1) Two-volume set

AN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHIC READING BOOK FOR BEGINNERS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (27486-1)

EGYPTIAN IDEAS OF THE AFTERLIFE, E. A. Wallis Budge. (28464-6)

EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE: EASY LESSONS IN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (Not available in United Kingdom) (21394-3)

EGYPTIAN MAGIC, E. A. Wallis Budge. (22681-6)

FROM FETISH TO GOD IN ANCIENT EGYPT, E. A. Wallis Budge. (25803-3)

THE GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (22055-9, 22056-7) Two-volume set

A HIEROGLYPHIC VOCABULARY TO THE BOOK OF THE DEAD, E. A. Wallis Budge. (26724-5)

AN INTRODUCTION TO ANCIENT EGYPTIAN LITERATURE, E. A. Wallis Budge. (29502-8)

LEGENDS OF THE EGYPTIAN GODS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (28022-5)

THE LITURGY OF FUNERARY OFFERINGS, E. A. Wallis Budge. (28335-6)

THE MUMMY, E. A. Wallis Budge. (25928-5)

OSIRIS AND THE EGYPTIAN RESURRECTION, E. A. Wallis Budge. (22780-4, 22781-2) Two-volume set

THE ROSETTA STONE, E. A. Wallis Budge. (26163-8)

TUTANKHAMEN: AMENISM, ATENISM AND EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM/WITH HIEROGLYPHIC TEXTS OF HYMMS TO AMEN AND ATEN, E. A. Wallis Budge. (26950-7)

THE DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMEN, Howard Carter and A. C. Mace. (23500-9)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECTURE, Somers Clarke and R. Engelbach. (26485-8)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN POETRY AND PROSE, Adolf Erman. (28767-X)

LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT, Adolf Erman. (22632-8)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION: AN INTERPRETATION, Henri Frankfort. (41138-9)

THE LEYDEN PAPYRUS: AN EGYPTIAN MAGICAL BOOK, F. Griffith and Herbert Thompson (eds.). (22994-7)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN DANCES, Irena Lexov. (40906-6)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MATERIALS AND INDUSTRIES, A. Lucas and J. Harris. (Available in U.S. only) (40446-3)

LEGENDS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, M. A. Murray. (41137-0)

EGYPTIAN DECORATIVE ART, W. M. Flinders Petrie (ed.). (40907-4)

EGYPTIAN TALES, W. M. Flinders Petrie (ed.). (40908-2)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RELIGION, Stephen Quirke. (Available in U.S. and Canada only) (27427-6)

WHO WERE THE PHARAOHS? A HISTORY OF THEIR NAMES WITH A LIST OF CARTOUCHES, Stephen Quirke. (Available in U.S. and Canada only) (26586-2)

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS: HOW TO READ AND WRITE THEM, Stephane Rossini. (Available in U.S. and Canada only) (26013-5)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS, Lewis Spence. (26525-0)

ANCIENT EGYPT, ITS CULTURE AND HISTORY, J. E. Manchip White. (22548-8)

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN DESIGNS FOR ARTISTS AND CRAFTSPEOPLE, Eva Wilson. (Not available in United Kingdom or Egypt) (25339-2)

Paperbound unless otherwise indicated. Available at your book dealer, online at www.doverpublications.com. or by writing to Dept. 23, Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, NY 11501. For current price information or for free catalogues (please indicate field of interest), write to Dover Publications or log on to www.doverpublications.com and see every Dover book in print. Each year Dover publishes over 500 books on fine art, music, crafts and needlework, antiques, languages, literature, childrens books, chess, cookery, nature, anthropology, science, mathematics, and other areas.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Published in the United Kingdom by David & Charles, Brunel House, Forde Close. Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 4PU.

Bibliographical Note

Egyptian Tales and Legends: Pagan, Christian and Muslim , first published in 2002, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published in 1931 by Thornton Butterworth Ltd., London, under the title Egyptian Tales and Romances: Pagan, Christian and Muslim.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Budge, E. A. Wallis (Ernest Alfred Wallis), Sir, 18571934.

Egyptian tales and legends: pagan, Christian, and Muslim / E. A. Wallis Budge.

p. cm.

Originally published: Egyptian tales and romances. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1931.

9780486148601

1. Egyptian fictionTranslations into English. 2. Coptic literatureTranslations into English. 3. TalesEgypt. 4. LegendsEgypt. I. Title: Previously published under title: Egyptian tales and romances. II. Title.

PJ1949 .B83 2002

893. 13008dc21

2002019207

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

T HE translations and summaries of the contents of Egyptian Tales and Stories printed in this volume are intended to illustrate the fiction and historical and religious romances of the Egyptians from the early dynastic period to the present day. Part I contains tales and historical romances which are written in the hieratic characters, and are found written on papyrus and engraved upon stone stelae. Masperos collection of stories, of which he published translations in French and English, concludes with the exploits of Peta-Bast, which are written in the Demotic character, and he adds translations of fragments of a Coptic version of the History of Alexander the Great by the Pseudo-Callisthenes. Roeders collection of stories written in Demotic is far fuller, and the general reader will find his notes on the published literature useful. Incidentally they show what an irreparable loss Egyptology has suffered through the death of Dr. W. Spiegelberg, the marvellously expert Demotologist and Semitic scholar, which took place on December 23 last. Dr. Roeder has also added translations of passages from three Coptic MSS. in Berlin, but it seems to me that they are not sufficient to show the magnitude of the literary revolution which took place in Egypt when the Egyptians, under the influence of the teaching of St. Mark the Evangelist, embraced Christianity in the first century of our Era.

I have, therefore, in Part II of this book, added translations from twelve Coptic manuscripts in which some of the curious results of the attempt to graft the Christian religion upon the old pagan religion of the country are made clear. The Books of the Old and New Testaments took the place of the Book of the Dead and the smaller funerary works : the Lives of Saints and Martyrs, Homilies, Encomiums and Christian legends caused the old pagan legends of the gods and the historical and religious romances to be forgotten, and the hieroglyphic, hieratic and Demotic scripts were abandoned in favour of an alphabet derived chiefly from the Greeks. The Christian Trinity ousted the old triads of gods, Osiris and Horus were represented by our Lord Christ, Isis by the Virgin Mary, Set the god of evil by Diabolus or Mast