The Contendings of Horus and Set: The Story of Edfu

← Sacred Egypt stories

The trial lasted eighty years.

That is what the story says. For eighty years the gods sat in judgement, unable to decide who should rule Egypt: Horus, the young son of the murdered king Osiris, or Set, his uncle, the murderer, mighty and terrible.

The tale is told in a papyrus from the reign of Ramesses V, now known as Chester Beatty I. Scholars call it The Contendings of Horus and Seth. It is part myth, part courtroom drama and, often, outright comedy.

The Divine Court

The gods gathered before Ra, the sun, who presided. Thoth, the wise, kept the records. Shu and others declared that the throne belonged by right to Horus, son of Osiris. But Ra favoured Set, the strong one who defended his solar barque each night against the serpent of chaos.

The case went round and round. Letters were sent to the goddess Neith, who replied that Horus should be given the throne, and Set compensated with two of Ra’s daughters as wives. Still Ra did not decide. One god insulted him. Ra lay down in his pavilion, sulking.

And it was Hathor who brought him back. She came before her father and uncovered herself, and the great sun god laughed. He rose and returned to the court. Even in the courts of heaven, the story says, joy and the feminine restore what anger has broken.

The Contests

Set proposed contests to prove his strength. In one, the two gods became hippopotami and plunged into the river to see who could stay underwater longest. In another, they raced in boats made of stone (Horus cleverly built his of wood and plastered it to look like stone; Set’s sank).

In a darker episode, Set attacked Horus and tore out his eyes, burying them in the mountains, where they grew into lotus flowers. Hathor found the wounded Horus weeping in the desert. She caught a gazelle, milked it, and poured the milk into his empty eye sockets. His eyes were healed.

The restored eye of Horus became the wedjat, one of the most powerful symbols in Egypt: wholeness, healing, protection, the wound made whole.

Horus Crowned

At last, Osiris himself wrote to the court from the underworld, reminding the gods that he made the barley and emmer that fed them, and that he could send his messengers after any who did wrong. The gods relented. Horus was crowned king of Egypt. Set was given a place in the sky, where his voice would be heard as thunder.

At Edfu, the greatest surviving temple of Horus, the walls tell their own version of the struggle, a ritual drama in which Horus harpoons Set in the form of a hippopotamus. Read more about the temple in Edfu, Horus and the Return of the Sovereign Masculine.

The Sovereign Masculine

Horus is not a perfect hero. He is young, sometimes rash, often wounded. But he persists. He claims what is rightfully his, not through domination but through truth, patience and the support of those who love him: his mother Isis, the goddess Neith, Hathor who heals his eyes, his father who speaks from beyond death.

That is the sovereign masculine: not the absence of wounds, but the willingness to keep standing for what is true until truth is recognised. And notice that at every turning point, the feminine intervenes. Hathor’s laughter. Isis’s cunning. Hathor’s healing milk. The masculine is restored in relationship with the feminine, which is the heart of the Hieros Gamos.

• Where are you, like Horus, still waiting for your rightful place to be recognised?
• What wound are you carrying that could become your wedjat, your symbol of wholeness?
• Who are the Hathors in your life who restore your sight?

Each year, Hathor sailed from Dendera to meet Horus at Edfu. You can read that story in The Golden One’s Voyage.

A Practice: The Healing of the Eye

Hathor healed the wounded eyes of Horus with milk, and they became the wedjat, a symbol of wholeness. This practice invites you to tend a wound with the same tenderness.

1. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Bring to mind a wound in your own sense of power or worth.
2. Notice where you feel it in your body. Place a gentle hand there.
3. Imagine Hathor kneeling beside you, pouring something cool and nourishing over that place. Let it soothe you.
4. Ask: What has this wound taught me to see?
5. Picture the wound transforming into a symbol of protection and wholeness, your own wedjat.
6. Draw that symbol on a small card and carry it with you as an amulet.

The Eye of Horus was one of the most popular amulets in ancient Egypt, worn by the living and placed with the dead. It promised protection precisely because it had once been broken and restored. Your wounds, too, can become sources of strength and insight, not because they were never painful, but because they were met with love.

Read More on the Blog

• Edfu, Horus and the Return of the Sovereign Masculine
• The Wound Between Us